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POETRY 



REPRESENTATIVE ART 



GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND, L.H.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ORATORY AND AESTHETIC CRITICISM IN THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY 
AT PRINCETON ; AUTHOR OF " THE ORATOR'S MANUAL," ETC. 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

®fre Ijmdtarfwtfca |)rtsa 

1886 



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COPYRIGHT BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Press of 

G. P. Pltnam's Sons 

New York 



PREFACE. 



n^HIS work is intended to be complete in itself, devel- 
oping from beginning to end the whole subject of 
which it treats. But this subject is a part of a larger 
one, connected with which are many underlying principles 
and practical inferences not mentioned here, although 
some of them, apparently, are not outside even of the 
limited range of discussion prescribed for this book by its 
title. To obviate the criticism which the omission of 
any reference to these may naturally occasion, it seems 
necessary to state that Poetry as a Representative Art is 
only one of a series of essays, most of which have been 
thought out, many written, and the whole, when com- 
pleted, intended to present topics arranged somewhat as 
follows : 

The Distinction between Na- 
ture and Art — Between Useful and ^Esthetic Art — The 
different Theories held concerning the Latter, and their 
Effects upon its Products — The true Theory, its Philo- 
sophical Basis, and the Classification of the Arts as deter- 
mined by it. 

The Fact of Representation, 
and its Bearings upon the Methods of the different Arts — 
Poetry as a representative Art {the present work) — Repre- 
sentation in Music — Painting — Sculpture — and Architec- 
ture. 



IV POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The Manner of Representation 
— Derivation of the Elements of Form from their mental 
and physical Sources and the Development, according to 
physical and mental Requirements, of these Elements so 
as to produce, when combined, the different Art-forms — 
Characteristics of Form essential to ^Esthetic Effects in 
all the Arts — How differing, when manifested in different 
Arts — How conditioning Rhythm and Tune in Poetry 
and Music — Proportion and Color in Painting, Sculpture, 
and Architecture. 

The Matter of Representation 
— Kinds of Truth derivable from Nature and from Man — 
Distinctions between Religious, Scientific, and Artistic 
Truth — Between different Phases of the Latter, as ex- 
pressed in all the Arts — And as differently expressed in 
the different Arts, with Illustrations showing the Neces- 
sity of making these Distinctions. 

These essays have been planned with the hope that 
they may prove genuine contributions to the literature of 
the subject with which they deal. How far they may 
succeed in doing this, must be decided of course by those 
who read them. 

Before closing, the author wishes to express his indebt- 
edness to Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co., and others, for their kind permission to insert in this 
work certain entire poems, of which they hold the copy- 
rights. 

Princeton, N. J., September, 1885. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I. 

PAGE 

Poetry anp Primitive Language . . . 1-18 

Introduction, I — All Art Representative, 3 — Poetry an Artistic 
Development of Language, 4 — Language Representative of Mental 
Processes through Material Sounds or Symbols, 4 — This Book to 
show how Language, and hence, how Poetic Language, can repre- 
sent Thought, by pointing out, first, how Sounds represent 
Thought in Primitive and then in Poetic Words and Intonations : 
and, second, how Sounds accepted as Words are used in Different 
Senses, and how these represent Thought in Conventional and 
then in Poetic Words and Phrases, 5 — Primitive Words are de- 
veloped according to Principles of Association and Comparison, 
partly Instinctively, as in Ejaculations ; partly Reflectively, as in 
Imitative Sounds, 5 — This Theory need not be carried too far, 9 — 
How Language is a Gift from God, 10 — Agreement with Refer- 
ence to Ejaculatory and Imitative Sounds would form a Primitive 
Language, 11 — Sounds represent Thought both in Single Words 
and in Consecutive Intonations, 12 — Elocution, the Interpreter of 
Sounds used consecutively, 12 — Representing that Blending and 
Balancing of Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies which ex- 
press the Emotive Nature, 12. 

II. 

Conversation, Discourse, Elocution, Versifica- 
tion ........ I 9~3i 

Representative Character of Intonations, 19 — Every Man has a 
Rhythm and a Tune of his own, 19 — Physiological Reason for 
this, 20 — Cultivated by Public Speaking, 21 — Recitative, and the 
Origin of Poetic and Musical Melody, 21 — Poetry, Song, Dance. 



VI CONTENTS. 



all connected : but not developed from each other, 22 — Poetic 
Pause and Accent are Developed only from Speech, 23 — Pause, the 
Source of Verse, 25 — Breathing and the Line, 25 — Hebrew 
Parallelism ; Greek, 25 — The Caesura, 26 — Accent, the Source of 
Rhythm and Tune, 27 — Feet : how produced in English, 28 — In 
the Classic Languages, 29 — Metrical Possibilities of English, 30. 

III. 

Elocution : its Representative Elements Classi- 
fied ........ 32-36 

Pause and Accent, 32 — Analyzed, the Former gives us the Element 
of Duration, the Latter gives Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality, 
33 — Must find what each Element represents in DISCOURSIVE 
ELOCUTION, developed from Ejaculatory or Instinctive Modes of 
Utterance, and in DRAMATIC ELOCUTION, developed from Imitative 
or Reflective Utterance ; and then apply to Poetry, 33 — General 
Statement of what is Represented by Duration, Force, Pitch, and 
Quality, ; Rhythm the Effect of the First Two, and Tune of the 
Last Two, 34. 

IV. 

Elocutionary and Poetic Duration . . 37-49 

The Elements entering into Rhythm : Duration, and Force, 37 — 
Duration : Fast Time Instinctive, representing Unimportant Ideas ; 
Slow Time Reflective, representing Important Ideas ; Movement 
a Combination of the Two, 37 — The Pause as used in Elocution, 
38 — In Poetry, at the Ends of Lines, 39 — In the Csesura, 40 — Run- 
on and End-stopped Lines, 40 — Quantity, Short and Long, in 
Elocution and Poetry ; as produced by Vowels and Consonants, 41, 
— Movement or Rhythm as influenced by Pause and Quantity, 44 — 
Feet of Three Syllables should represent Rapidity, 45 — Predomi- 
nating Long Quantity injures English Hexameters, 46 — Feet of 
Four Syllables represent Rapidity, 49. 

V. 

Elocutionary and Poetic Force . . . 50-56 

Force, representing Instinctive Tendency of Utterance, or Physi- 
cal Energy, 50— Different Kinds of Force, 50 — The Degree of 
Force, 51— Loud and Soft Force as Used in Elocution, 51 — Their 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAGE 

Poetic Analogues, 51 — Loudness and Softness, Strength and Weak- 
ness, Great and Slight Weight as represented by Long or Short, 
Accented or Unaccented Syllables, 52. 

VI. 
Force as the Source and Interpreter of Poetic 

Measures . . . . . . . 5 7-81 

Gradations of Force or Stress, representing Reflective Influence 
exerted on Instinctive Tendency, 57 — What is represented by the 
the Different Kinds of Elocutionary Stress, 58 — Why Elocutionary 
Stress corresponds to Poetic Measure, 59 — Classification of Eng- 
lish Poetic Measures, and their Classic Analogues, 60 — What is 
represented by Initial Double Measure, 62 — Its Classic Form, 63 
— By Terminal Double Measure, 65 — Why used in Our Hymns, 
67 — Its Classic Form, 67 — Triple Measures ; Median, 68 — Its 
Classic Form, 70 — Initial Triple Measure, 70 — Could also be termed 
Compound Measure, corresponding to Compound Stress, 70 — Its 
Classic Form, 72 — Its Use in Greek Pseonics, 72 — In Pathos, 
corresponding to Tremulous Stress, 73 — Terminal Triple Measure, 
74 — Can correspond to Thorough Stress, 74 — Its Classic Form, 
75 — Blending of Different Triple Measures, 75 — Of Triple and 
Double Measures to prevent Monotony, 76 — Quadruple Measures, 
Di-initial and Di-terminal, 77 — Blending of all Kinds of Measures 
to represent Movements, 79. 

VII. 
Elocutionary and Poetic Regularity of Force, 82-88 

Regularity of Force, combining its Instinctive with Reflective 
Tendencies, and representing Emotive Influence, 82 — Abrupt and 
Smooth Force, as used in Elocution, and Irregular and Regular 
Accentuation corresponding to them in Poetry, 82 — Abruptness in 
short and long Lines, 85 — Imitative Effects, 87. 

VIII. 
Elocutionary and Poetic Pitch — Tunes of Verse, 89-102 

Elements entering into the Tunes of Verse : Pitch and Quality, 89 
— Pitch representing Reflective Tendency or Intellectual Motive, 
90 — On its Instinctive Side by High and Low Key, 91 — What each 
represents, 91 — On its Reflective, by Rising, Falling, and Circum- 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

flex Movements, 92 — What each represents, 92 — When Influences 
from both Sides express Emotive Colorings, by Melody, 94 — 
What Different Melodies represent, 94 — Pitch as used in Poetry, 
95 — Which was formerly chanted, 95 — And has Tunes at Present, 
96 — Shades of Pitch in Speech as Numerous as, and more Delicate 
than, in Song, 96 — Scientific Proof that Short Vowels usually sug- 
gest a High Key, and Long, a Low Key, 97 — Light, Gay, Lively 
Ideas represented by the Former, 99 — Serious, Grave, Dignified by 
the Latter, 100. 

IX. 

Poetic Pitch — Rising and Falling Tones . 103-114 

Correspondence between Elocutionary Inflections or Intonations and 
certain Arrangements of Verse-Harmony produced by Sounds of 
Vowels and Consonants combined, 103 — Effects of Rising Move- 
ments produced by Lines beginning without Accents and ending 
with them, 104 — Of falling Movements, by Lines beginning with 
Accents and ending without them, 105 — Of Circumflex Movements, 
by Combinations of both Arrangements, ic6 — What the Marks of 
Accent indicated to the Greeks, and how they read them in their 
Poetry, 107 — Illustrations of Ideas represented by Verse arranged 
to give Effects of Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements, 109 
— Movements of Verse in Narration and Pathos, 114. 

X. 

Poetic Pitch — Melody and Rhyme . . 1 15-125 

Variety and Monotony in Elocution and Poetry represent less or 
more Control over Self and the Subject, 115 — True Significance of 
Alliteration, Assonance, etc., 116 — Rhyme introduces Element of 
Sameness, 118 — Increases effects of Versification, of Unity, of 
Poetic Form, of Emphasis of all Kinds, of Regularity of Move- 
ment, of Rapidity of Thought, 118 — Results of Changing the 
Order of the Occurrence of Rhymes in Tennyson's " In Memo- 
riam," 122 — Blank Verse admitting of Great Variety Preferable 
for Long Productions, 124. 

XL 
Elocutionary and Poetic Quality . . 126-135 

Quality represents the Emotive Nature of the Soul as influencing 
and influenced by both Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, 



CONTENTS. IX 

RAGE 

126 — Kinds of Quality, and what each represents in Elocution, 127 
— Letter-Sounds used in Verse to Produce Effects of the Aspirate 
Quality, 128 — Guttural, 130 — Pectoral, 130 — Pure, 132 — Orotund, 
132 — Illustrations of Poetic Effects of all these Kinds when com- 
bined, 133. 

XII. 

Effects of Poetic Quality Continued . 136-149 

Imitative Effects of Letter-Sounds corresponding to Aspirate 
Quality, representing Serpents, Sighing, Rapidity, Winds, Slumber, 
Conspiracy, Fear, Frightening, Checking, 136 — Guttural Quality, 
representing Grating, Forcing, Flowing Water, Rattling, Effort, 
13c; — Pectoral Quality, representing Groaning, Depth, Hollowness, 
142 — Pure Quality, representing Thinness, Clearness, Sharpness, 
Cutting, 143 — Orotund Quality, representing Fulness, Roundness, 
Murmuring, Humming, Denying, etc., 143 — These Effects as com- 
bined in Various Illustrations of Carving ; Dashing, Rippling, and 
Lapping Water ; Roaring, Clashing, Cursing, Shrieking, Fluttering, 
Crawling, Confusion, Horror, Spite, Scorn, etc., 145. 

XIII. 

The Sacrifice of Sense to Sound . . 150-160 

Verse in which Attention to Sound prevents Representation of 
Thought, 150 — Violating Laws of Natural Expression or Gram- 
matical Construction, 151 — Excellences exaggerated, the Sources of 
these Faults, 152 — Insertion of Words, Pleonasm, Superfluity, 152 
— Transposition of Words, Inversion, Hyperbaton, tending to 
Obscurity, 154 — Style of the Age of Dryden, 156 — Alteration of 
Words in Accent ; or by Aphaeresis, Front-Cut ; Syncope, Mid- 
Cut ; or Apocope, End-Cut, 157 — All these often show Slovenly 
Workmanship, 158. 

XIV. 

Sacrifice of Sense to Sound Continued . 161-172 

Omission of Words, or Ellipsis, indicating Crudeness, 161 — Leading 
to Obscurity because Meanings are conveyed by Phrases as well as 
by Words, 164 — Misuse of Words, Enallage, 165 — Poetic Sounds 
are Artistic in the Degree in which they really represent Thought 
and Feeling, 171. 



X CONTENTS. 

XV. 

PAGE 

Meanings of Words as Developed by Associa- 
tion and Comparison .... 173-179 

Instinctive Ejaculatory Sounds, and Reflective Imitative Sounds, 
becoming words by Agreement, in Fulfilment of the Principle of 
Association or Comparison, can represent but a few Ideas, 173 — 
Other needed Words may be due to Agreement in using Arbitrary 
Symbols ; it is Philosophical to suppose them largely developed by 
Tendencies underlying the Formation of Primitive Words, 174 — 
How these Tendencies lead to the Use of the same Word in Dif- 
ferent Senses, 175 — In the case of Words whose Meanings depend 
on Association, 175 — How what refers to the Material comes to 
refer to the Immaterial, 176 — Words whose Meanings depend on 
Comparison, 176 — What refers to the Material \> by Comparison 
used for the Immaterial, 177 — Great Varieties of Meanings are 
developed from the same Word by Continued Processes of Associa- 
tion and Comparison, 178 — A Knowledge of this fact, and its 
Results are Necessary to an Intelligent Use of Language, 179. 

XVI. 

Meanings of Phrases as Determined by Associa- 
tion or Comparison .... 180-185 

Language, a Process in which Words and Ideas represented by 
them are used consecutively, 180 — How Words in Progression can 
represent Mental Processes, 180 — How Acts in Progression do this 
in Pantomime and how this is done when Words, as Symbols, are 
substituted for the Acts in Pantomime, 181 — How Subject, Predi- 
cate, and Object are put together, 182, — Subject, Predicate, and 
Object of a Complete Sentence, are the Beginning, Middle, and 
End of a Complete Process, of which all the Parts of Speech are 
Logical Parts, 183 — Examination of Certain Sentences, 183 — 
How the Meanings of thern, considered as Wholes, depend on the 
Principle of Association or of Comparison, 184 

XVII. 

Poetic and Unpoetic Words .... 186-194 

Words depending for their Meanings on Association not necessa- 
rily Prosaic ; nor those depending on Comparison necessarily 
Poetic, 186 — The Latter necessitate Imagination to originate, and, 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

at first, to interpret them, but after being used become Conven- 
tional, 187— This the Natural Tendency of all Words, iSS— 
Poets can always cause Words to seem Poetic ; First, by selecting 
those representing Poetic Associations, 188 — This applies to Con- 
ventional Words, 189 — Second, by arranging Words imaginatively 
so as to suggest New Comparisons or Pictures, 190 — Why English 
of Anglo-Saxon Origin is preferred by our Poets, 190 — Have 
Familiar Associations, 191 — Sounds fit Sense, 191 — Are used by us 
in Different Senses, 192 — Figures represented in Compound Words 
Apparent, 192 — In general more Significant, 193 — Why the Eng- 
lish Language is fitted to remain Poetic, 194. 

XVIII. 
Plain and Figurative Language . . 195-207 

Two Kinds of Language used in Poetry, that depending for its 
Meaning on Association and that depending on Comparison, 195 
— Distinction between the Term Figurative Language, as applied 
to Poetry and as used in ordinary Rhetoric, 195 — Figures of 
Rhetoric containing no Representative Pictures : Interjection, In- 
terrogation, Apostrophe, Vision, Apophasis, Irony, Antithesis, 
Climax, 196 — Figures of Rhetoric necessitating Representative 
Language : Onomatopoeia, Metonomy, Synecdoche, Trope, Simile, 
Metaphor, Hyperbole, Allegory, 197 — Laws to be observed, and 
Faults to be avoided, in using Similes and Metaphors, 200 — When 
Plain Language should be used, 203 — And when Figurative, 206. 

XIX. 

Prose and Poetry ; Presentation and Repre- 
sentation in its Various Forms . 208-212 

Tendencies of Plain Language toward Prose, and of Figurative 
toward Poetry, 208 — Plain Language tends to present Thought, 
209 — Figurative to represent it, 209 — All Art Representative, 210 
— But Plain Language may represent, and Figurative may present, 
210 — Poetic Representation depends upon the Character of the 
Thought, 211 — If a Poet thinks of Pictures, Plain Language de- 
scribing them will represent according to the Method of Direct 
Representation, 211 — If not of Pictures, he may illustrate his 
Theme by thinking hi Pictures, and use Figurative Language 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

according to the Methods of Indirect or Composite Illustrative 
Representation, 21 r — Pure Representation is solely Representa- 
tive, 212 — Alloyed Representation contains some Presentation, 212. 

XX. 

Pure Direct Representation . . . 213-224 

In what Sense, and how far, Thought and Feeling can be Com- 
municated Representatively, 213 — Pure Representation, as used 
by Tennyson, 214 — Hunt, etc., 215 — Pure Direct Representation, 
as used by Homer, Milton, Shakespear, Morris, Heine, Tennyson, 
Arnold, Burns, Gilbert, etc., 216 — Extensive Use of this Method 
in all Forms of Poetry, 220. 

XXI. 

Pure Indirect or Illustrative Representation, 225-239 

Illustrative in Connection with Direct Representation enables a 
writer to express almost any Phase of Thought representatively or 
poetically, 225 ; Examples, 226 — Representation, if Direct, must 
communicate mainly what can he seen or heard, 228 — Inward 
Mental Processes can be pictured outwardly and materially only by 
Indirect Representation, 228 — Examples from Longfellow, Arnold, 
Whittier, Smith, 229 — Direct Representation developed from In- 
stinctive Modes of Expression, exemplified in Ejaculatory Sounds 
and Words formed from Association ; Indirect, developed from 
Reflective Modes, exemplified in Imitative Sounds and Words 
formed from Comparison, 230 — As in Primitive Language, with 
Meanings determined by Sounds, the Intonations representing 
Emotive Tendency result from combining Instinctive and Reflec- 
tive Tendencies, so in Developed Language, with Meanings 
determined by Sense, the Emotive Tendency leads to a form of 
Illustration resulting from combining Instinctive and Reflective 
Tendencies ; this might be termed Composite Representation, 231 
— But, as in Rhetoric and Practice Indirect and Composite Repre- 
sentation follow the same Laws, both will be treated here as 
Illustrative Representation, 231 — Similes, ancient and modern, 
from Homer, Morris, Milton, Shakespear, Moore, Kingsley, 232 — 
Metaphors, ancient and modern, 235 — Used in Cases of Excitation; 
Examples, 237. 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

XXII. 

PAGE 

Pure Representation in the Poetry of Homer, 240-261 

How the Phenomena of Nature should be used in Representation 
— Homer as a Model, 240 — His Descriptions are Mental, Fragmen- 
tary, Specific, Typical, 241 — The Descriptions of Lytton, Goethe, 
Morris, Southey, etc,, 244. — Homer's Descriptions are also Progres- 
sive ; Examples, 251 — Dramatic Poems should show the same 
Traits, 259 — Homer's Illustrative Representation, 260. 

XXIII. 

Alloyed Representation : Its Genesis . . 262-277 

Alloy introduces Unpoetic Elements into Verse, 262 — All Classic 
Representation Pure, 263 — Tendencies in Poetic Composition lead- 
ing to Alloyed Representation, 264 — In Direct Representation, 264 
— In Illustrative Representation, 265 — Lawful to enlarge by Illus- 
trations an Idea Great and Complex, 265 — Or Small and Simple, 
266 — Descriptions of a Meal, 269 — Sunset, 270 — Peasant, 271 — 
Sailor, 272 — How these Tendencies may introduce Alloy that does 
not represent, 273 — Exaggerations in Love-Scenes, 274 — In De- 
scriptions of Natural Scenery, etc., 276 — In Allegorical Poems 
and Sensational Plays, 276. 

XXIV. 

Explanatory Alloy in Direct Representation, 278-292 

Alloy, if carrying to Extreme the Tendency in Plain Language, 
becomes Didactic ; if the Tendency in Figurative Language, it 
becomes Ornate, 278 — Didactic Alloy explains and appeals to the 
Elaborative Faculty, not the Imagination, 279 — Rhetoric instead 
of Poetry, 279 — Examples of Didactic Alloy where Representa- 
tion purports to be Direct in Cases where the Thought is Philosoph- 
ical, 280 — How Thought of the Same Kind can be expressed Poet- 
ically, 281 — In Cases where the Thought is Picturesque, as in 
Descriptions of Natural Scenery, 284 — How Similar Scenes can be 
described Poetically, 285 — Didactic Descriptions of Persons, 288 — 
Similar Representative Descriptions, 289 — Plow Illustrative Repre- 
sentation helps the Appeal to the Imagination, 289 — In Descrip- 
tions of Natural Scenery and of Persons, 290 — The Sensuous and 
the Sensual, 292. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

XXV. 

1'AGE 

Explanatory Alloy in Illustrative Represen- 
tation . 293-307 

Illustrations that are not always necessarily Representative, 293 — 
Their Development gradually traced in Descriptions of Natural 
Scenery, 295 — Practical Bearing of this on the Composition of 
Orations, 299 — Why Common People hear Some gladly and Others 
not at all, 299 — Obscure Styles not Brilliant, 302 — Examples of 
Obscure Historical and Mythological References in Poetry, 303 — 
' — Alloyed Representation Short-Lived, 304 — How without any 
such a Mixture of Main and Illustrating Thought as to destroy 
Representation, References to possibly UnknownThings are made 
in Poetry that lives, 305. 

XXVI. 

Ornamental Alloy in Representation . 308-318 

Poetic Development of the Far-Fetched Simile in the Illustrating 
of Illustrations, 308 — Examples of this from Several Modern 
Writers, 309 — Whose Representation or Illustration fails to repre- 
sent or illustrate, 312 — Poetic Development of the Mixed Meta- 
phor, 312 — Examples from Modern Poets, 313 — In what will this 
result? 314 — More Examples, 315 ; How the Tendency leads the 
Poet from his Main Thought to pursue Suggestions made even by 
Sounds, Representing thus a Lack of Sanity or of Discipline, 
neither of which is what Art should represent, 317. 

XXVII. 

Representation in Poems Considered as Wholes, 319-341 

Form in Words and Sentences, 319 — How Visible Appearances 
give an Impression of Form, 320 — How Movable Appearances do 
the Same, 320 — Consistency and Continuity in a Sentence Neces- 
sary to give it an Effect of Form, 321 — A Poem a Series of Repre- 
sentations and of Sentences, 321 — Must have Manifest Consist- 
ency and Continuity giving it Manifest Unity and Progress, as also 
Definiteness and Completeness, 322 — Examples of Poems with a 
Manifest Form modelled on Direct Representation, 323 — How 
Figures can be carried out with Manifest Consistency and Conti- 
nuity, 327 — Complete and Broken Figures, 328 — Examples of 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

Poems with Forms modelled on the Methods of Illustrative Repre- 
sentation, 328 — How Excellence of Form in all Poems of whatever 
Length should be determined, 336 — Certain Poems not representing 
Unity and Progress, 337 — Great Poets see Pictures when conceiving 
their Poems ; Inferior- Poets think of Arguments, 338 — Same Prin- 
ciples applied to Smaller Poems, 338 — The Moral in Poetry should 
be represented not presented, 339 — Poetic Excellence determined 
not by the Thought but by .the Form of the Thought, which must 
be a Form of Representation, 339. 

XXVIII. 
The Useful Ends of Poetic Representation 342-346 

These are all developed from Possibilities and Methods of Expres- 
sion underlying equally the Formation of Poetic and of all Lan- 
guage, 342 — Poetry forced to recognize that Nature symbolizes 
Processes of Thought, 343 — Influence of this Recognition upon Con- 
ceptions of Truth, Human and Divine, Scientific and Theologic, 
344 — And its Effects upon Feeling and Action ; Conclusion, 345. 



POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



CHAPTER I. 

POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 

Introduction — All Art Representative — Poetry an Artistic Development of 
Language — Language Representative of Mental Processes through Ma- 
terial Sounds or Symbols — Primitive Words are developed according to 
Principles of Association and Comparison, partly Instinctive, through 
Ejaculations ; partly Reflective, through Imitative Sounds — This Theory 
need not be carried too far — How Language is a Gift from God — 
Agreement with Reference to Ejaculatory and Imitative Sounds would 
form a Primitive Language — This Book to show how Language, and 
hence, how Poetic Language, can represent Thought, by pointing out, 
first, how Sounds represent Thought in Primitive and then in Poetic 
Words and Intonations; and, second, how Sounds accepted as Words are 
used in Different Senses, and how these Represent Thought in Conven- 
tional and then in Poetic Words and Phrases — Sounds represent Thought 
both in Single Words and in Consecutive Intonations — Elocution, the 
Interpreter of Sounds used Consecutively — Representing that Blending 
and Pialancing of Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, which express 
the Emotive Nature. 



w 



ORDSWORTH, in one of his finest passages, says 
of the results of his studies in poetry: 

I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity. 

. . . And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 



2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue shy, and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. 

— Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintem Abbey. 

How many are there who have learned for themselves 
this lesson — undoubtedly a valuable one — of which 
Wordsworth speaks ? How many are there who can ap- 
prehend clearly his meaning in what he says of it ? How 
many are there who can discover in themselves any im- 
portant addition to their mental or moral development 
that has been due to poetry, or who can appreciate any of 
its best thought, if at all subtle in its nature, even though 
presented in the best possible form ? That in our day 
there are very few of these, is only too apparent to any 
competent judge of the subject who questions the leaders 
in our literary circles, who reads the verses in our maga- 
zines, who examines the criticisms in our reviews, or who 
listens to the accounts of what students of poetry are 
taught in our schools. Yet in his " Defence of Poesy" 
Sir Philip Sidney tells us that this art " is of all other 
learnings the most ancient, — that from whence all other 
learnings have taken their beginnings, — and so universal 
that no learned nation doth despise it ; nor no barbarous 
nation is without it." Bailey says that : 

Poetry is itself a thing of God. 

He made his prophets poets, and the more 

We feel of poesy do we become 

Like God in love and power. 

— Eestus. 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 3 

And Holmes assures us that — 

There breathes no being, but has some pretence 
To that fine instinct called poetic sense. 

— A Metrical Essay. 

If statements like these, which could be multiplied 
indefinitely, be true, then it is both important and pos- 
sible for men of all classes and conditions to have the 
character and methods of this art — the only one accessible 
to the members of every household — so explained to them 
that they shall be able to appreciate it, and to judge intelli- 
gently of its products, and hence to enjoy it, and to profit 
by it. It is with this belief that the present work has 
been undertaken, in which it will be maintained through- 
out that there are absolute standards of poetic excellence; 
that these can be ascertained ; and that upon them can be 
founded a system of criticism as simple as it is scientific. 

At the threshold of our undertaking, the first thing for 
us, of course, is to become thoroughly acquainted with 
the facts of the case, and the fact of primary importance 
for us here will be ascertained when, in some form, we 
have answered the question, What is poetry ? 

Poetry is acknowledged to be an art, ranking, like 
music, with the fine arts, — painting, sculpture, and archi- 
tecture. It is acknowledged, also, that the peculiar char- 
acteristic of all these arts is that they have what is termed 
form (from the Latin forma, an external appearance). 
This form, moreover, is aesthetic (from the Greek aiadr/ro?, 
perceived by the senses) ; and it is presented in such a way 
as to address the senses through the agency of an artist, 
who, in order to attain his end, re-presents the sounds or 
sights of nature. All these arts, therefore, in a broad 
sense of the term, are representative. What they repre- 



4 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

sent is partly the phenomena of nature and partly the 
thoughts of man ; partly that which is imitated from 
things perceived in the world without, and partly that 
which is conceived in the mind of him who, in order to 
express his conception, produces the imitation. Both of 
these factors are present in all artistic forms, and cause 
them to be what they are. That painting and sculpture 
represent, is recognized by all ; that music and architect- 
ure do the same, needs to be proved to most men. As 
for poetry, with which we are now to deal, all perceive 
that it contains certain representative elements ; but few 
are aware to what an extent these determine every thing 
in it that is distinctive and excellent. 

The medium used in poetry is language, of which it is 
simply an artistic development. To understand the one, 
we should begin by trying to understand the other. Let 
us consider, then, for a little, what language is. Only a 
moment's thought will show, that, like the arts of which I 
have spoken, it, too, is representative. Through outward 
and perceptible sounds or symbols it makes known our 
inward thoughts, which, without the representation, others 
could not know. If, in any way, we can ascertain how it 
does this, we may gain a clew by which to find how 
poetry can do the same. 

How, then, does language represent thought through 
the agency of sound ? The best way to find an answer to 
this is to trace, as far as possible, the course of a few 
thoughts from their inception, in the mind outward to the 
full expression of them in words. For this purpose we 
might imagine ourselves to be living in some early, or, at 
least, uncultivated age ; we might ask what would be done 
by the members of a race with a limited number of words 
and desirous of expressing ideas for which they had no 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 5 

terms in their vocabulary. But, without taxing our imagi- 
nation thus, we can accomplish our purpose by watching 
the children of our own time. We can note the different 
stages in the development of their efforts to tell us what 
they think ; and then we can argue from analogy that 
there would be a similar order of development in language 
during the childhood of the race. Let us pursue this 
course. As we do. so, we shall find ourselves, instinc- 
tively, making two divisions of our subject : the first 
dealing with the methods of originating sounds so as to 
represent thought ; the second, with the use of them 
after they have been originated so as to represent different 
thoughts. It is best to begin by considering the former 
of these, and then, immediately in connection with it, its 
bearings on poetic forms ; not because, in its relations 
either to language or to poetry, it occupies the more im- 
portant position, but because it comes the earlier in the 
order of time. 

The first sounds made by the babe are instinctive, tmd 
seem to be accepted as words in fulfilment mainly of the 
principle of association. By instinctive, as used in this 
book, is meant an expression allied in its nature to instinct ; 
due, even in a rational being, to the operation less of 
conscious rationality than of natural forces vitalizing all 
sentient existence. The child cries and crows while the 
mother hums and chuckles, and both understand each 
other. They communicate through what may be termed 
ejaculations or interjections. This kind of language is little 
above the level of that of the brutes ; in fact, it is of the 
same nature as theirs. The sounds seem to have a purely 
muscular or nervous origin ; and for this reason may be 
supposed to have no necessary connection with particular 
thoughts or psychic states intended to be expressed by 



6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

them. Nevertheless, we all understand the meanings of 
them when produced by the lower animals, as well as 
when made by man. Everywhere, certain ejaculations are 
recognized to be expressive of the general tenor of certain 
feelings, like those of pleasure and pain, desire and aver- 
sion, surprise and fright. This fact shows that there is a 
true sense in which they are representative ; and to recog- 
nize it, is all that is necessary for our present purpose. 
To show why they are so, to explain how the various 
qualities and movements of sounds can be made to picture 
in one sphere the qualities and movements of thoughts 
which can exist only in another sphere, would require a 
thorough unfolding of the principles of elocution and 
music ; and to introduce this just here would take us 
away from the line of thought immediately before us. 

Waiving all questions with reference to any comparison 
or likeness that there may be between these ejaculations 
and the particular sensations that they express, we can all 
recognize how men, after they have heard the same utter- 
ance used many times with the same emotion, should 
come to ally or associate the two. " Expression," says 
Farrar, in his " Language and Languages," " is the natural 
and spontaneous result of impression ; and, however merely 
animal in their nature the earliest exclamations may have 
been, they were probably the very first to acquire the dig- 
nity and significance of reasonable speech, because in their 
case, more naturally than in any other, the mere repeti- 
tion of the sound would, by x the association of ideas, 
involuntarily recall the sensation of which the sound was 
so energetic and instantaneous an exponent. In the dis- 
covery of this simple law, which a very few instances 
would reveal to the mind of man, lay the discovery of the 
Idea of Speech. The divine secret of language — the 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. J 

secret of the possibility of perfectly expressing the unseen 
and immaterial by an articulation of air which seemed to 
have no analogy with it — the secret of accepting sounds 
as the exponents and signs of every thing in the ' choir of 
heaven and furniture of earth ' — lay completely revealed 
in the use of two or three despised interjections. To bor- 
row a simile from the eloquent pages of Herder, they were 
the sparks of Promethean fire which kindled language 
into life." 

The principle of association in connection with the use 
of natural exclamations, accounts probably for the origin 
not only of actual interjections, but of other sounds also, 
like the sibilants, aspirates, and gutturals, giving their 
peculiar qualities to the meanings of syllables like those 
in hush, hist, and kick. Some, too, think that it accounts 
for the origin of words like is, me, and that, cognate with 
the Sanskrit as, ma, and ta ; the first meaning to breathe, 
and indicating the act of breathing; the second closing 
the lips to shut off outside influence, and thus to refer to 
self ; and the third opening the lips to refer to others. In 
the same way, too, because the organs of speech are so 
formed that the earliest articulated sound made by a babe 
is usually either mama ox papa, and the earliest persons to 
whom each is addressed are the mother and father, people 
of many different races have come to associate mama, 
which, as a rule, is uttered first, with an appeal to the 
mother, and papa with an appeal to the father. 

In order, however, that utterances springing from 
sounds like these may be used in language, it is evident 
that men must begin to imitate them. The principle of 
imitation, therefore, as well as that of ejaculation, must 
have been closely connected with the formation of the 
earliest words. Ejaculations, as has been said, are instinc- 



8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

tive. As such, they come first in the order of time, fur- 
nishing men both with sounds that can be imitated, and 
with sounds, originated in the vocal organs, that can be 
modified so as to form the imitations. But the latter 
begin to be used as soon as the reflective nature begins to 
assert itself ; and they soon extend to the reproduction of 
other sounds besides ejaculations — sounds that are indis- 
putably representative in the most literal sense, and that 
become accepted as words as a result of actual comparison 
no less than of association. They are first heard when 
the child is led to notice external objects. Then, unlike 
the animal which can only ejaculate, but just like his 
reputed father Adam, the first who had a reflective nature, 
he begins to give names to these objects, or to have names 
given to them for him by others. These names, according 
to the methods controlling the formation of nursery lan- 
guage, are always based upon the principle of imitation. 
Certain noises emanating from the objects designated, 
the chick-chick of the fowl, the tick-tick of the watch, the 
cuckoo of the bird over the clock, the bow-wow of the dog, 
and, later, the clatter of the rattle, or the rustle of the silk 
or satin, are imitated in the names applied to them ; and 
this imitative element enables the child to recognize what 
the object is to which each name refers. The existence of 
hundreds of terms in all languages, the sounds of which 
are significant of their sense, like buzz, hiss, crash, slam, 
bang, whine, howl, roar, bellow, whistle, prattle, twitter, 
gabble, and gurgle (many of which are of comparatively 
recent origin), is a proof that the principle of imitation is 
an important factor in the formation of words. " Through 
all the stages of growth of language," says Whitney in his 
"Language and the Science of Language," " absolutely 
new words are produced by this method more than by 
any other." 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE IANGUAGE. 9 

Not only c o, but it is recognized universally that in 
our present languages certain words — and they are those 
which skilful writers always prefer to use, if they can — 
sound more like what they mean than others do. Many 
of these words, it is true, are in no sense traceable to an 
imitative origin. But they are treated as if they were ; 
and this fact proves that there is a tendency at present, as 
there always has been, to derive satisfaction from imita- 
tive, mimetic, or, as they are technically termed, onomato- 
poetic, sounds. Of all writers, the poet, who, as an artist, 
is supposed to use language the most skilfully, manifests 
the most of this tendency. Notice the following: 

The terrible grumble and rumble and roar, 
Telling the battle was on once more. 

—Sheridan's Ride : T. B. Read. 

Here 's a knife ; clip quick ; it 's a sign of grace. 

— Holy Cross Day : Browning. 

So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
********* 
'Neath our feet broke the bright brittle stubble like chaff. 

— How They Brought the Good News : Browning. 

Roared as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices. 

— Boddicea : Tennyson. 

Ancient rosaries, 
Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door. 

— The Raven : Poe. 

It is only when the imitative and ejaculatory theories 
of the origin of words are held to the exclusion of all 
others, that they deserve the treatment which they have 
received from Max Miiller, in his "Science of Language," 



IO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

under the names of the bow-wow and pooh-pooh theories. 
Miiller himself, however, mentions approvingly what has 
been called in turn the ding-dong theory, originated by 
the German Heyse, in his " System der Sprachwissen- 
schaft." According to this theory, as Miiller states it, 
" a law runs through nearly the whole of nature, that 
each substance has its peculiar ring. ... It w r as 
the same with man." He once possessed an instinctive 
faculty for giving articulate expression to the rational 
conceptions of his mind. But this " creative faculty, 
which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first 
time through his brain, a phonetic expression, became 
extinct when its object was fulfilled." This theory does 
not seem to differ materially from the ejaculatory. Of 
course, the fewer words a man had in his vocabulary in 
that early period, the more he would exclaim, and the 
more he used his exclamations as words, the more their 
character would become changed from that which they 
had when mere exclamations. It is true that in this sense 
the creative faculty, enabling him to give representative 
expressions, would become extinct. He would come to 
use conventional words instead of them. But before he 
possessed these words it would be, to quote from Whit- 
ney, " beyond all question as natural for the untaught 
and undeveloped man to utter exclamations as to make 
gestures." 

This theory, that the very earliest words were ejacula- 
tory and imitative, seems to accord with the commonly 
accepted view, that language is a gift from God, recogniz- 
ing it to be so in the sense that, whereas beasts and birds 
are endowed with the power of representing only a few 
sensations through a few almost unvarying sounds, man 
can represent any number of thoughts and emotions 



POETRY AXD PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. II 

through articulating organs capable of producing almost 
infinite combinations and variations. Place two human 
beings, thus constituted, in a state like that of Eden, and 
in a month's time, by using ejaculatory and imitative 
utterances, and mutually agreeing, as they necessarily 
would do, to associate certain ideas with certain of these, 
they would form a primitive language, which both could 
understand ; and a number of their words, too, would 
probably not be wholly dissimilar in either sound or sense 
to some that Ave use to-day. 

This fact of agreement, just mentioned, is undoubtedly 
the most important of the elements causing sounds to 
become words with definite meanings. But in the present 
discussion, it is important to notice that, in the beginning, 
there were the best of reasons for this agreement ; the 
signs used actually represented the things signified ; they 
were like them or allied to them ; they compared with them 
or were associated with them, and that, too, in a natural 
and not, as is the case with words originated later, in an 
arbitrary way. Without any agreement at all, an ejacu- 
latory or imitative word would have some meaning, and 
this a meaning similar to the one ultimately assigned to 
it by common consent. 

Were we dealing with language here for its own sake, 
it would be in place iioav to pass on from these earlier 
sounds, originated in order to represent thought, to the 
consideration of the same after they have been originated 
and are used over again in order to represent other and 
different thoughts. This would introduce us into a 
sphere where we should find the great majority of words 
in all vocabularies. But we must defer any reference to 
these at present. Our object now is to find the connec- 
tion between representation in natural and in artistic 



12 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

language ; and, before we go further, it will be best to 
apply at once what has been noticed with reference to 
the representation of thought in sound, to its representa- 
tion in those features of poetic form which depend upon 
sound. 

So far, we have been examining how ideas can be repre- 
sented in single words. But ideas, when conceived in the 
mind, are in constant movement. To be represented 
completely, they must be expressed by words, not stand- 
ing alone, but following one another in the order of time. 
Possibly, it is because we usually hear them in this order, 
that most of us are inclined to give credence to the 
ejaculatory and imitative theories with reference to their 
origin. For, whatever may be true of words used separ- 
ately, it is a fact that, even aside from the conventional 
meanings ordinarily attached to them, intonations, such 
as can be given only in the movements of consecutive 
speech, have a significance. When Bridget, according to 
a familiar story, was sent to the neighbors to inquire how 
old Mrs. Jones was, she emphasized the old, and paused 
after it, and so gave irreparable offence. Her tones repre- 
sented an idea which the mere words of the message 
confided to her had not been intended to convey. 

These intonations, as will be noticed, are representa- 
tive of movement on the part of ideas. Movement is a 
result of the instinctive tendency, which, carried to an 
extreme, as in great physical passion, ends in explosion. 
Ideas result from the reflective tendency, which, carried to 
an extreme, as in the profoundest thought, ends in abso- 
lute cessation of movement, or quietness. The intona- 
tions result from the blending and balancing of both of 
these tendencies. But now, whenever the results of reflec- 
tion are added to those of instinct, or of instinct to those 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 1 3 

of reflection ; whenever neither one of these elements 
alone is present but both together are found in an expres- 
sion, this, in distinction from either instinctive or reflective, 
is what we may term emotive. A man, for instance, may 
eat and sleep like an animal, instinctively, or he may think 
and talk reflectively, without giving any expression to 
what we mean by emotion. But as soon as he thinks and 
talks in connection with eating and sleeping, as is the case 
with a caterer or an upholsterer, an hotel-keeper or a 
housewife ; or as soon as his instincts prompt and accentu- 
ate his thinking and talking, as is the case with an actor 
or a good story-teller, then, as a result of instinct made 
thoughtful, or of thought made instinctive, he begins to 
manifest his emotive nature, and the character of his 
emotion is represented by the degree in which the one 
or the other of the two tendencies influencing him is in 
excess. 

We may arrive at this same conclusion through a differ- 
ent method. That which blends and balances the in- 
stinctive or physical and the reflective or mental tendencies, 
is the soul, holding body and mind together, influencing 
and influenced by both. But as the intonations result 
from the blending and balancing of these same tendencies 
as manifested in language, we may say that the intona- 
tions represent not only the emotive nature, as has been 
shown, but also the soul. Is it, then, the same thing to put 
emotion into an expression and to put sonl into it ? Nine- 
ty-nine persons out of every hundred will acknowledge 
that, according to their ordinary conceptions, it is. And 
our line of thought here will show that, in this case, ordi- 
nary conceptions are right. No one can give expression 
to his emotive nature without representing a blended 
result of nerve and thought, of instinct and reflection. 



14 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Nor can he give material embodiment to all the possibili- 
ties of expression that move his soul, without doing the 
same. 1 

1 It may be asked here, very naturally, where, in this classification of ten- 
dencies, is the place for the expression of the will ? The answer is that 
there is none, and that there needs to be none. What we mean by will is 
simply a force in the soul, emotive in its general character, which, swayed 
by the influence of some overbalancing tendency, ends in action. As this 
force, when operating in any direction, is constant or fitful, the will is said 
to be strong or weak. If it impel to action mainly in an instinctive direc- 
tion, to the exclusion of reflective influences, the character is what is ordi- 
narily termed wilful, and, under differing conditions, will be reckless, 
sensual, cruel, or, as influenced slightly by reflective tendencies, domineering, 
like that of a Napoleon. If the force impel to action mainly in a reflective 
direction to the exclusion of instinctive influences, the character, under dif- 
fering conditions, will be too coldly speculative, chimerical, or, as influ- 
enced slightly by instinctive tendencies, calculating or hypocritical, like that 
of a Machiavelli or a Chesterfield. In case the instinctive and reflective 
tendencies are very evenly matched, and therefore both act, but act alter- 
nately, the character is ill-balanced and fickle, like that of many men of 
genius, whose susceptibility to widely separated influences is the source of 
their strength, but also of their weakness. In case the instinctive and 
reflective tendencies both act, and act simultaneously, with the reflective 
ruling, as is always the case when the two act together normally, the result 
is both natural and rational; we say that the character is "well- 
balanced," and. the one possessing it is " level-headed," — conditions which, 
at their best, produce a man like Washington. Were these facts with 
reference to the action of the will regarded, many faults both of opinion and 
training would be avoided. It would be recognized, for instance, that 
while there is such a thing as " converting a soul," by turning the control of 
its energies from its instinctive to its reflective nature, there is no such 
a thing as "breaking a will"; that the recklessness tending to sensuality 
and cruelty, or the opposite trait, tending to speculation and sometimes to 
hypocrisy, can neither of them be corrected, except by a careful cultivation 
of the tendencies that naturally balance them. 

The three tendencies from which, in this work, the phenomena of expres- 
sion are derived, are the same in general character as those upon which were 
based the principles of the " Orator's Manual," published several years ago. 
For the terms now used in order to refer to them, especially instinctive 
an&tmotive, as well as for certain ideas necessarily associated with these, I 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 1 5 

It may be interesting to notice now how Herbert Spen- 
cer, in his " Essay on the Origin and Function of 
Music," confirms the most of what has just been said with 

seem to be about equally indebted to my friends Professor J. W. Churchill, 
of the Andover Theological Seminary, and Moses True Brown, of the 
Boston School of Oratory. But this division of expressional tendencies into 
the instinctive, reflective, and emotive, besides being made to accord with 
the results of the practical experience of instructors of this rank, can be 
made to accord also with the classifications of many different systems of phi- 
losophy. To mention a few of these, and to go back first to the subtlest of the 
most ancient of them, Plato, — according to the careful analyses of his theories 
made by my esteemed colleague, Professor S. S. Orris, of Princeton Col- 
lege, — in the " Timaeus," as also in the fourih and ninth books of the " Re- 
public," divides the soul into the sensuous, corresponding to what is called 
in this work the instinctive tendency, under which he classes the desires for 
sensuous pleasures and indulgences, like that for food, drink, sex, and 
money ; the rational, corresponding to what is here termed the reflective ten- 
dency ; and the spirited, as translators term it, under which, as appears 
from the " Phoedrus " and the eighth and ninth books of the " Republic," 
he classes the emotions of wonder, reverence, ambition, emulation, indigna- 
tion, love of honor, the beautiful, power, glory, etc. In the " Timaeus," 
again, he locates the rational nature in the head, and the spirited in the 
thorax near by it, so that " it may obey the reasoning principle (the reflect- 
ive), and in connection with it restrain the desires " (of the instinctive tend- 
ency), — which duty, as will be seen, is also the most important of the 
functions assigned in this work to the emotive nature. 

The underlying philosophy of the writers of the New Testament, too, 
seems to have been very similar to that of Plato. Paul says in 1 Thes. v., 
23: "I pray God your whole spirit (Ttvevjita) and soul (ipvxy) and body 
(6GJjua)bQ preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." Of 
the three tendencies thus mentioned — for it can hardly be supposed that they 
are meant to indicate separate entities — the former, the TtvEvfia, is gener- 
ally taken to refer to the higher rational or reflective nature. It is repre- 
sented as sometimes good and sometimes evil in character (Mark i., 23), but 
always as that which allies man to the divine Spirit, also described frequently 
as the Spirit of Truth {to TtvEvjia rr/S dXr/0eia<, John xiv., 17). The lat- 
ter word, doo/Lia, is acknowledged to refer to the body, sometimes to the 
fleshly body, as in the expression " body of his flesh " (tv r&3 6o6f.ian riji 
6apKo c .) in Col. i., 22, and sometimes to the body supposed 10 take the place 
of the fleshly in the next world, as in the expression, "It is sown a natural 



1 6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

reference to the representative character of the intona- 
tions. He asserts that these furnish " the commentary of 
the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect " ; then, 

body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a 
spiritual body," {pzojia Ttvev/uariHov) in i Cor. xiii., 43, 44. These state- 
ments would make the promptings of the daojiio: correspond to what is 
meant in this book by the instinctive tendency ; for while this has been rep- 
resented to be the one most nearly allied to physical vitality, it is still a 
tendency of mind, otherwise it could not be a factor in linguistic expression ; 
and though, during the presence of the physical form it manifests itself 
through it, we can conceive, were this form absent, of its manifesting itself 
through the form taking the place of it. 

The reflective tendency being traced to the itvev/ia and the instinctive 
to the daj/ia, or, so far as concerns the present life, to this, as embodied in 
the flesh (o'aoc), which we are told, in Gal. v., 17, " lusteth against the 
spirit," we have left the emotive tendency. Can this be traced to what Paul 
terms the soul {ipvxt)) ? In other words, can the ipvxif represent the 
feeling connected with conscious life, either animal or rational? As for the 
soul's being the seat of emotion, it can only be said that usually, but not 
universally, it is the soul which in the Scriptures is represented as being 
pleased, Mat. xii., iS ; or sorrowful, Mark xiv., 34 ; or troubled, John 
xii., 27 ; and this either spiritually or physically, as in Luke xii., 19, " Soul 
(ipMX ? f)> eat ' drink, and be merry." As for the same word's representing 
the principle of life in bo'di the animal and rational natures, this seems more 
susceptible of proof. It is explicitly stated in I. Cor. xv. , 43, 44, that 
when one dies his body "is sown " a soul-body (Cgj// a tyvxix-ov } trans- 
lated in our version "a natural body") "and is raised a spiritual body. 
There is a spiritual body and there is a soul-body " ; but it is implied just 
as plainly in Matt, xvi., 25, 26, that there is a soul connected with the 
TtvEvi-ia or the rational part of man, existing after death. Otherwise what 
can this mean : " For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul ?' or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
soul (r7/b ^'Uj?/?)?" If these passages taken together, and others like 
them, can be made to mean that there v is a soul or an emotive tendency 
which, at times, can act in connection either with the reflective (itrevfia) 
or the instinctive {600/10) tendency, then the philosophical theory implied 
in these statements c rrcsponds exactly with what is said of the emotive ten- 
dency of the soul in this work. Possibly, too, theologians might derive a 
suggestion of value from the fact that the i}>vx?) is the only mental element 
represented in the Scriptures as in danger of being lost. The rtvevjua and 



POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. \J 

making a physical explanation, says that " the muscles 
that move the chest, larynx, and vocal cords, contracting 
like other muscles in proportion to the intensity of the 

the 6(S>f.ia appear to be always kept, but the question seems to be asked : 
What would either be without the ipvxy, the seat of those emotions, from 
which man derives both the pleasures of existence and the power of bal- 
ancing and harmonizing the tendencies of his nature toward "rationality,'* 
" thought," " the ideal," on the one hand ; and toward "body," "embodi- 
ment," " form," on the other ? 

The classification of modes of expression given here, will be recognized 
also as resembling, with some differences, those of the system of Delsarte, as 
represented both by L' Abbe Delaumosne in his printed work, and by pupils 
of the French elecutionist in this country. Delaumosne traces expression 
to eccentric, concentric, and normal motion, corresponding respectively to 
the sensitive, intellectual, and moral states of the mind. For normal mo- 
tion, or the effects of it, Moses True Brown, in his lectures before the 
Boston School of Oratory, substitutes the word poise, an admirable term, 
which I have found full of suggestions, as I have other ideas of this lecturer ; 
and he describes the states of the mind by using the terms vital, mental, and 
emotional. In the present work, an attempt has been made for the first 
time to analyze the tendencies of expression for the purpose of showing the 
relation between them and the effects of poetry. But, in connection with 
this, will be found also the first complete classification of these tendencies, 
as manifested in discoursive and dramatic elocution, through the elements of 
duration, force, pitch, and quality. As for the theory underlying these 
classifications, the acceptance of which, however, is not necessary to the ac- 
ceptance of the classes themselves, it differs from the others mentioned, 
mainly, in recognizing, as a basis for aesthetic methods of expression, only 
two primary forms of motion, or of mental tendencies corresponding to 
them ; and in considering the third as the resultant of these two. In this 
regard, this theory is sustained by the divisions into the subjective, the objec- 
tive, and the relations between them, which underlie the entire philosophic 
systems both of Schelling and Hegel. Herbert Spencer, moreover, in 
his " Principles of Pyschology," while maintaining that " no definite separa- 
tion can be effected between the phenomena of mind and those of vitality in 
general," also tries to " find a true generalization of mental phenomena by 
comparing them with the lower vital phenomena." Of course, it would follow 
from this, that there are certain mental tendencies allied to the vital nature, 
and others allied to what is higher than it ; the former of which, being first 
manifested in instinct, may very properly be termed, as in this work, in- 



1 8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

feelings ; every different contraction of these muscles in- 
volving, as it does, a different adjustment of the vocal 
organs ; every different adjustment of the vocal organs 
causing a change in the sound emitted ; — it follows that 
variations of voice are the physiological results of 
variation of feeling ; it follows that each inflection 
or modulation is the natural outcome of some passing 
emotion or sensation ; and it follows that the explana- 
tion of all kinds of vocal expression must be sought 
in this general relation between mental and muscular 
excitements." Thus the philosophy of evolution con- 
firms in a general way the conclusions, with reference to 
the developments of verbal sounds, that have been drawn 
here. The emotive element, representing the " relation 
between mental and muscular excitements," or, to put it 
in our own language, between the reflective and instinctive 
tendencies, using and blending the results of the former 
as manifested in imitative words, and of the latter as 
manifested in words formed from ejaculations, gives us the 
intonations of consecutive speech. On the representative 
character of these, aside from that of verbal significance, 
are based the principles of elocution, and on these last, as 
we shall find, are based those of poetic form, so far as 
this is dependent on elements of sound. 

stinctive, while the latter is a more full and complex development of that 
"reflex action," to use the words of Spencer, "in which we see the in- 
cipient differentiation of the psychical (or reflective) from the physical life." 
He also says that " the same progress which gives origin to memory and 
reason simultaneously gives origin to feeling," by which he must mean that 
the emotive nature has that in it which corresponds to the lowest as well as 
the highest states of conscious intelligence. He adds, too, that " so long as 
the actions are perfectly automatic, feeling does not exist," by which he 
seems to indicate that, in his opinion, will and feeling are related, as has 
been intimated here. Notice also in the main text the quotations from 
Spencer with reference to the subject immediately before us. 



CHAPTER II. 

CONVERSATION, DISCOURSE, ELOCUTION, AND VERSIFI- 
CATION. 

Representative Character of Intonations — Every Man has a Rhythm and a 
Tune of his Own — Physiological Reason for this — Cultivated by Public 
Speaking — Recitative, and the Origin of Poetic and Musical Melody — 
Poetry, Song, Dance, all connected ; but not developed from each Other 
— Poetic Pause and Accent are developed only from Speech — Pause 
the Source of Verse — Breathing and the Line — Hebrew Parallelism ; 
Greek — The Caesura — Accent, the Source of Rhythm and Tune — Feet: 
how produced in English ; in the Classic Languages- — Metrical Possi- 
bilities of English. 

\\T E all must have noticed that a child too young to 
talk, a foreigner using a language unknown to us, 
a friend speaking at such a distance from us that his words 
are indistinguishable, can all reveal to us, with a certain 
degree of deflniteness, the general tenor of their thoughts. 
Their tones, aside from their words, enable us to under- 
stand such facts as whether they are hurried or at leisure, 
elated or depressed, in earnest or indifferent, pleased or 
angered. This is so because these facts are directly repre- 
sented by their intonations. Developed with design, these 
may be made to resemble those of the foremost actors 
and orators. Hence the art of elocution. Developed 
without design, they instinctively come to imitate those of 
the people with whom one most associates. Scotchmen, 
Irishmen, Englishmen, and Americans can all be distin- 
guished by the different ways in which they utter the same 

19 



20 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

phrases. No two of them will emphasize precisely alike a 
simple expression such as " I can't go there to-day." 

Not only men of different nations can be distinguished 
thus, but even different individuals. Any one well known 
to us can be recognized in the dark by what we term 
his voice, by which we mean his method of using his 
voice ; the way, peculiar to himself, of pausing at certain 
intervals and hurrying at others, of sliding his sounds up 
and down on certain syllables and phrases, and also, per- 
haps, of giving in certain places an unusual stress or 
quality of tone. All these methods impress his individu- 
ality on every thing that he has to say. If he becomes a 
public speaker, his peculiarities in these regards become 
still more marked. Unconsciously, if not consciously, he 
develops them so that, in his delivery, similar intonations 
recur with a certain degree of regularity; in other words, 
he comes to have what may be termed a rhythm and a tune 
of his own. The reason why he comes to have these is, 
undoubtedly, mainly physiological, as is intimated by 
Herbert Spencer in his " Essay on Style," and Grant 
Allen in his " Physiological ^Esthetics." It is owing to a 
natural tendency to economize labor. Just as the swing- 
ing of the hands enables one to walk more easily, so what 
may be termed the swinging of the tones enables one to 
talk more easily. So, also, as we shall find by-and-bye, do 
verse and measure, to which these intonations naturally 
lead. The two together separate the words and syllables, 
and make them accord with the natural actions of the 
lungs and throat. 

But let us waive this thought, until we reach it in its 
proper place. Before the age of books those who prepared 
literature published it by repeating it in public. Every 
man who did this had, of course, his own peculiarities of 



DISCOURSE AND VERSIFICATION. 21 

utterance, which, as he continued to repeat his pro- 
ductions, he would cultivate and render more and more 
peculiar; just as is the case to-day with the venders who 
cry in our streets, the clerks who read in our courts, and 
the priests who intone the services in our churches. 
These peculiarities, moreover, would be shown not only in 
the elocution of the reciter, but in the arrangement of his 
words and sentences, so as to fit them to his elocution. 
At the outset, every literary man would have his own 
style of delivery and composition, and confine himself to 
it. But after a little, just as men of the same districts, 
and preachers and exhorters of the same religious sects — 
Quakers, Methodists, or Episcopalians, — imitate each 
other; so these public reciters would drift into imitation. 
Before long, too, it would be found that one style of ex- 
pression, or form of words, was better suited for one set of 
ideas, and another for another set ; so, in time, the same 
reciter would come to use different styles or forms for 
different subjects. Only a slight knowledge of history is 
needed in order to prove that this is what has actually 
taken place. Spenserian verse, and possibly Homeric, as 
also the Alcaic and Sapphic stanzas of the Greeks, were 
used first by the poets whose names they bear; but to-day 
they are used by many others who find them the best forms 
through which to express Avhat they wish to write. 

But to return to our line of thought. A further de- 
velopment in the direction already indicated, would cause 
these reciters after a time to use versification, so that 
their rhythms and the variations in them might be more 
clearly marked ; and still later, that the precise length of 
their verses might be apparent, as well as to assist the 
memory in retaining them, they would use rhymes. Fur- 
ther developments in the direction of rhythm and tune, 



22 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

introducing greater variety in both, and making the tones 
more and more sustained, would lead to the singing of 
songs — that is, to poetry set to musical melody. 

Such, crudely outlined, seems to be the most rational ex- 
planation of the rise of poetic forms. It is true that some, 
like Dr. J. H. Heinrich Schmidt, in his " Introduction to 
the Rhythmic and Metric of the Classic Languages," hold 
that " poetry and music had their origin in the dance and 
song," and that " it must be carefully borne in mind that 
recited poetry was developed from song." But while he 
maintains this theory, Dr. Schmidt is obliged to admit 
that it cannot be substantiated by the known facts of 
history. He says that the march-melodies, dance-melodies, 
and purely lyric melodies, which, he believes, to have pre- 
ceded recitative poetry, were so inferior in quality that 
none of them have come down to us. Of the products 
which have come down to us, " recitative poetry, power- 
fully developed in the great national epics (Homer, 
Hesiod, Arctinus, Stasinus, etc.), comes first. Then purely 
lyrical poetry appears with Callinus, Archilochus, etc. The 
first march-melodies were written by Tyrtaeus for the 
Spartans. And about the same time we hear of the first 
choric compositions (/. c, dance-melodies), those, namely, 
of Alcman and Stesichorus." 

This order of development, it will be seen, corresponds 
to that of the theory just presented here. But, while we 
hold this theory, perhaps we should be going too far, did 
wc carry it to the extreme that Herbert Spencer does in 
his " Essay on the Origin and Function of Music," in 
which he seems to argue that every thing that we have in 
music is merely a development of the forms of speech. It 
seems more likely that both music and speech, the one 
instinctive in its nature, and the other reflective, are 



DISCOURSE AND VERSIFICATION. 23 

equally differentiated from a primitive ejaculatory form of 
utterance. Speech, as we have it, originated with man ; 
but long before the existence of man, there must have 
been lower orders of creation in which the tendencies 
subsequently developed into speech and music, both 
existed in distinct and different forms. In fact, all the 
modes of expression mentioned by Schmidt — talking, 
singing, and dance-gesturing — have correspondences, 
respectively, in the chirping, singing, and fluttering of the 
bird. Spencer is undoubtedly right in saying that poetry 
is " a form of speech used for the better expression of 
emotional ideas." It, and all the higher forms of elo- 
quence, are developed from talking with a musical or — 
what is the same thing — an emotional motive. And 
Schmidt is undoubtedly right in recognizing that the 
three forms of expression which he mentions have a ten- 
dency to run into each other. Whether one starts out to 
talk, or sing, or gesture, he may end by doing all three. 
This fact has been true, probably, as long as man has 
existed ; and in this sense, dance and song — i. c, music in 
connection w r ith rhythmical language, undoubtedly pre- 
ceded the earliest known recitative poems. But it is a 
different thing to say that poetry, which is distinctively 
an artistic development of language, is nothing but a 
development of dance and song. In no true sense can 
this be affirmed, although of course poetry, music, and 
dancing have all influenced each other, and in important 
particulars the principles underlying all are the same. 

It has been shown from analogy that language, as used 
by the early reciters, had a natural tendency to become 
rhythmical ; also from history, that the various forms of 
existing poetry were developed from the recitative. The 
strongest argument in favor of the view just advanced, 



24 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

however, has yet to be presented. It is found in the fact 
that the elements of all poetic, as well as of elocutionary 
forms, can be traced to the physical requirements of the 
organs of speech, and to these not as they are used in 
singing, but, distinctively, in talking, One can sing with- 
out suggesting any thing that can be developed into verse 
or rhythm ; but it is impossible for him to talk, without 
suggesting what can be developed into both. In order to 
recognize the truth of this statement, we have merely to 
listen to a man talking. As we do so, two characteristics 
of speech will at once attract our attention. One is the 
pause or cessation of sound, following groups of syllables, 
which form phrases or sentences, containing anywhere 
from two to a dozen words ; the other is the accent, given 
to every second, third, or fourth syllable. This word 
accent is used here, by the way, not in its restricted classic 
etymological sense (from ad and cano, to sing to), which will 
be explained hereafter, but in its modern English sense, 
meaning merely the emphasis or ictus given to certain 
syllables. Results that are universal — and the pause and 
accent are so, notwithstanding the alleged lack of the 
latter in the French language — are usually founded on 
requirements of nature. 

The pause results, primarily, from the construction of 
the human lungs ; the accent, from that of the human 
throat. The speaker checks his utterance in order to 
breathe ; he accents it because the current of sound — in 
talking, but not in singing — flows through the vocal 
passages in a manner similar to that in which the blood 
pulses through the veins, or fluid is emptied from the 
neck of a bottle — i. c, with what may be termed alternate 
active and passive movements. The active movements, 
which cause the accents, open the throat more freely than 



THE PAUSE AND VERSIFICATION. 2$ 

the passive ones, and in doing so may change, as will be 
shown hereafter, either the duration, force, pitch, or 
quality of the tone, or all of these together. Observe the 
difference between the accented and unaccented syllables 
of tart arize, Singsing, murmuring, barbarous, sassafras, 
Lulu, papa. 

It is only necessary to observe these facts in order to 
recognize that the line in verse, at the end of which, when 
regularly constructed, the reader necessarily pauses, is an 
artistic development of the pause, which we find in all 
natural conversation. In fact, Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, 
seems to hint at some such a development in prose, for he 
says the period must be divided into clauses, easily pro- 
nounced at a breath, tv avanvevG-co^. It is generally ac- 
knowledged that the principal mental process involved in 
art-construction is comparison. This causes all men, both 
consciously and unconsciously, both for convenience and 
pleasure, to take satisfaction in putting like with like. 
The moment this tendency is applied to groups of sylla- 
bles separated by pauses, it leads men to place, if possible, 
a like number of syllables in each group, and thus have 
between the pauses like intervals of time. But an arrange- 
ment of this kind is the primary characteristic of verse. 
Take the earliest of which we know — Hebrew parallelism 
— so called because made up of two phrases, each of 
which contains a parallel or equivalent statement : 

I will bless the Lord at all times ; 

His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 

My soul shall make her boast in the Lord ; 
The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. 

O magnify the Lord with me ; 
And let us exalt his name together. 



26 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

I sought the Lord, and he heard me ; 
And delivered me from all my fears. 

— Psalms xxxiv., 1-4. 

Even the English translation shows that this was con- 
structed according to the principle just mentioned. The 
Hebrew, feeling that the end of the sentence was the 
appropriate place in which to pause, and wishing to pause 
at regular intervals, tried to make his sentences of equal 
length. This was his way of producing the same effect 
that we have in our verse. The method of the early 
Greek, too, seems to have been the same. " In recitative 
poetry," says Schmidt, to whom I have already referred, 
" which appropriated to itself the simplest forms, occurs 
the most primitive sort of rhythmical period, the recitative 
verse ; this consists of two sentences," similar in arrange- 
ment to that of the Hebrew, "which either have equal 
length, or the second of which is catalectic or ' falling,' or 
is even shortened by an entire measure." 

In the later Greek poetry, however, as in our own, the 
length of the line does not determine the length of the 
sentence. But it does, or at least should, determine the 
length of the phrases ; because, as we have found, the reader 
naturally pauses at the end of the line. If this be long, 
he also pauses at some other place, usually in the middle 
of the line. This latter pause is called the caesura, from a 
Latin word meaning a division. Here are lines with the 
caesura indicated by a bar : 

Brought from the woods | the honeysuckle twines 
Around the porch, | and seems v in that trim place 
A plant no longer wild ; | the cultured rose 
There blossoms, strong in health, | and will be soon 
Roof high ; | the wild pink crowns the garden wall, 
And with the flowers | are intermingled stones 
Sparry and bright, | rough scatterings of the hills. 

— Excursion, 6 : Wordsworth, 



ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 2J 

The caesura pause need not necessarily come in the 
middle of the line, e. g. : 

— Death his dart 
Shook, | but delayed to strike, though oft invoked. 

— Par. Lost, II : Milton. 

Have found him guilty of high treason. | Much 
He spoke and learnedly. 

— Henry VIII., 2 ; I : Shakespear. 

For reasons to be given hereafter, the pause at the end 
of the line is much more apparent where rhymes are 
used, e. g. : 

In arguing, too, the pastor owned his skill, 
For e'en though vanquished he could argue still, 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, 
And still they gazed and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

— Deserted Village : Golds?nith. 

In the same way as the pause is developed into verse, 
accent is developed into rhythm and the tunes of verse, 
— two characteristics of poetic form which necessarily go 
together, just as do their analogues in the arts appealing 
to the eye, proportion and color. Some may doubt that 
accent is the basis of rhythm and tune, but it is really 
about all that the majority of men know of either. With 
exceptions, the fewness of which confirms the rule, all of 
our English words of more than one syllable must neces- 
sarily be accented in one way ; and all of our articles, 
prepositions, and conjunctions of one syllable are unac- 
cented, unless the sense very plainly demands a different 
treatment. These two facts enable us to arrange any num- 
ber of our words so that the accents shall fall on syllables 
separated by like intervals. The tendency to compare 
things, and to put like with like, which is in constant 



28 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

operation where there are artistic possibilities, leads men 
to take satisfaction in this kind of an arrangement ; and 
when they have made it, they have produced rhythm. 

A larger rhythm makes prominent as in prose, every 
second or third accent ; but metrical rhythm, i. e., metre, 
regards every accent. When reading verse, the accents 
seem to mark it off ; if marching, our feet would keep 
time to them. Hence, as many syllables as can be grouped 
about one syllable clearly accented, are termed a measure 
ox foot, — words synonymous as applied to English verse ; 
though the classic measure sometimes contained two feet. 
Here are feet separated by bars : 

Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers 

The train | from out | the cas | tie drew 

Over the | roadways and | on through the | villages 

There came to | the beach a | poor exile | of Erin 

O'er the land | of the free | and the home | of the brave 

Roses are in | blossom and the | rills are filled with | water-cresses 

The king has come | to marshal us | in all his ar | mor dressed. 

The number of measures in a line determines its metre; 
Hence the use of the Greek terms, monometer, meaning 
a line of one measure, and dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, 
pentameter, hexameter, etc., meaning respectively a line 
of two, three, four, five, and six measures. 

All this, however, need scarcely be known as a prepara- 
tion either for writing or reading English verse. The 
poet has only to arrange his words so that the accents 
will recur at like intervals, and very few for whom he 
writes will fail to recognize the character of his rhythm, 
and to measure it off correctly in their reading. It 
is true that, if unusual measures are used, it may be neces- 
sary to put long words, or those in which the accent is 
unmistakable, at the beginning of the first line or two, 



ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 29 

but, the clew once given, the rhythm will take care of 
itself. The smallest children, able to talk, catch with 
ease the movements of Mother Goose's melodies, some of 
which contain metres as complicated as are ever con- 
structed. 

In the classic languages metre was determined by the 
quantities or relative lengths of the vowel-sounds or con- 
sonant-sounds composing the syllables. Our own lan- 
guage is not spelled phonetically, and therefore w r e fail to 
notice the effect of similar elements in it. Yet they are 
present to a greater extent than we ordinarily suppose, as 
will be brought out clearly when we come to consider 
quantity, especially that which is used in the English 
hexameter. Any one acquainted with the subject, knows 
that it is a mistake to hold that quantity has nothing 
whatever to do with the movements of our metres, and 
an analogous mistake, probably, would be made in suppos- 
ing that the emphasis of ordinary pronunciation had 
nothing whatever to do do with the classic metres. 
Notice what Schmidt has to say on this subject in the 
quotation from his " Introduction to the Rhythmic and 
Metric of the Classic Languages," given in the ninth 
chapter of this work. It is true that, in constructing 
verse, the Greeks and Romans subordinated every thing 
else to quantity ; but they did so in order to produce a 
rhythmic effect when chanting their lines, analogous to 
that which we produce when reading ours according to 
accent. Unlike ourselves, however, if, in composing, they 
came to a word in which long quantity and the ordinary 
accent did not go together, they seem always to have 
been at liberty to disregard the accent, and occasionally, 
too, to change the quantity. At the same time, that 
which controlled their action in the matter appears to 



30 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

have been largely a consideration of convenience. In 
serious poety, it was lawful for them to produce results 
not wholly unlike that in the third rhyme of the follow- 
ing,' the classic quality of which some of us hitherto may 
not have recognized: 

For he might have been a Roosian, 
A French, or Turk, or Proosian, 

Or perhaps I-tal-i-an. 
But in spite of all temptations 
To belong to other nations, 

He remains an Englishman. 

— Pinafore : Gilbert. 

Our poets, on the contrary, base the rhythms of their 
verse on the accents of the standard pronunciation, and 
to these subordinate all considerations of quantity. The 
result, as compared with the language of our prose, is 
more natural than that reached by the other method ; and 
in its way is fully as artistic. Nor, in other regards, is 
English inferior to the classic tongues in its capabilities 
of artistic treatment. Owing to an. extensive use of ter- 
minations in nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives, and 
verbs, in order to indicate different grammatical relation- 
ships, the Greeks and Romans could change the order 
of words in a sentence without changing its meaning. 
In their language, " The dog ate the wolf," with slightly 
varied terminations, could read, " The wolf ate the dog." 
For this reason, they could alter their phraseology, in 
order to accommodate it to the requirements of metre, as 
is not possible for us ; and so far they had an advantage 
over us. Nevertheless, for some reason, when they came 
to put their words into verse, every school-boy who tries 
to scan, knows that they produced a language which, 
Uke the present French poetic diction, sounded unlike 



ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 3 I 

that of conversation. Even supposing, with some schol- 
ars, that in reading they did not scan their verses as we do 
now, nor even chant them invariably, as some infer was 
the case, their poetical language was not the same as their 
spoken language. Aristotle tells us, when mentioning 
things which it is legitimate for the poet to do, that he 
can invent new words, that he can expand old ones, either 
by lengthening vowels or by adding syllables, that he can 
contract them by shortening vowels or omitting syllables, 
and that he can alter them in various other ways. Spenser 
and others since him have applied similar methods to Eng- 
lish poetic diction ; but, at present, such changes are not 
considered admissible, except in rare instances, and this be- 
cause they are recognized to be unnecessary. The fact that 
they are not admissible in our language, and were admissi- 
ble in the classic languages, proves that, in one regard at 
least, our language is superior to them as a medium of metre. 
The following is a typical English stanza. In it there are 
no changes from ordinary prose in the arrangement, spell- 
ing, or pronunciation of any of the words : 

" Tell me not in mournful numbers 
Life is but an empty dream, 
For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
And things are not what they seem." 

— Psalm of Life : Longfellow. 



CHAPTER III. 

ELOCUTION : ITS REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS CLASSI- 
FIED. 

Pause and Accent — Analyzed, the Former gives us the Element of Duration ; 
the Latter gives Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality — Must find What 
each Element represents in discoursive elocution, developed from 
Ejaculatory or Instinctive Modes of Utterance, and in dramatic 
elocution, developed from Imitative or Reflective Utterance ; and 
then apply to Poetry — General Statement of What is represented by 
Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality ; Rhythm the Effect of the First 
Two, and Tune of the Last Two. 

TTAVING sufficiently established now the general 
fact that certain poetic forms are traceable to 
the pause and accent of ordinary conversation, we are 
prepared to pass on and ask what these forms represent? 
To answer this we must decide first what the pause and 
accent represent ; and, after that, try to determine whether, 
in any sense, they represent corresponding ideas when 
developed into the forms of poetry. Let us pursue our 
inquiry in the order thus suggested. 

What the pause and accent represent can be ascertained 
only by a reference to the principles of elocution. This 
art, as we know, has the power of producing an almost 
endless variety of effects, and all these, as a moment's 
thought will show us, simply by making more or less em- 
phatic the very pauses and accents now engaging our 
attention. In these, therefore, must be enfolded many 
possibilities of expression capable of development. Let 

32 



ELOCUTIONARY ELEMENTS CLASSIFIED. 33 

us try to ascertain what they are. Looking first, then, at 
the pause, it is easy to see that its only element is that of 
duration. We can extend it over longer or shorter time. 
In accent, however, on comparing the accented and unac- 
cented syllables of words like barbarous, murmuring, tar- 
tarize, Singsing, and papa, we can clearly detect four ele- 
ments. The accented syllable differs slightly from the 
unaccented — first, in duration : it is sounded in longer 
time ; second, in force : it is sounded with more energy ; 
third, in pitch: it is sounded on a key that, if used in 
music, would be relatively higher or lower in the musical 
scale ; and fourth, in quality : it is sounded with more ful- 
ness or sharpness of tone. Simply by increasing the 
degree in which any of these elements enter into ordinary 
accentuation, we can increase the degree of emphasis rep- 
resented by them. We have noticed, already, how the 
pause influences the division of consecutive words into 
verses. As applied to individual words, i. e., when used 
after or before them, it has evidently the same general 
effect as the prolongation of a sound ; it gives the ideas 
expressed in the words more duration. 

Let us examine now what phases of thought different 
kinds of duration, force, pitch, and quality are fitted to 
represent, and see how far they can aid us in determining 
what can be represented by analogous poetic forms. To 
attain our end, it will be necessary for us to go to elocu- 
tion. 

All the principles of this art can be classed under two 
heads, those of discoursive and of dramatic elocution. The 
first, generally termed the elocution of emphasis, is devel- 
oped from instinctive methods of expression, and corre- 
sponds, in this regard, to words formed from ejaculations. 
It is used mainly in oratory. The second, generally 



34 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

termed the elocution of personation, is developed by the 
reflective powers as a result of impressions received from 
without. Mimicry, in some form, underlies all its effects ; 
for which reason, it will be seen at once to correspond to 
words formed as a result of imitation, and to be the phase 
of delivery used mainly in dramatic acting. Of course, 
the best elocution combines all the possibilities of the 
art ; but, as a rule, the orator's chief aim is to give expres- 
sion to his own thoughts ; the actor's, to seem properly 
impressed by thoughts suggested by his surroundings. 

In treating of duration, force, pitch, and quality, it will 
be best to consider, first, the discoursive, and then the 
dramatic, uses of each ; and, in immediate connection with 
them, to direct attention to the corresponding develop- 
ments in poetic form. More extended explanations and 
illustrations of the elocutionary part of this subject may 
be found in the author's " Orator's Manual." For our 
present purpose, it will be sufficient to state, briefly, as 
introductory to what will be unfolded more fully as we 
go on, that, of the four elements of emphasis to be exam- 
ined, duration is merely an external effect of sound, while 
force, pitch, and quality are all essential to the very forma- 
tion of it ; different degrees of force, as we learn from 
science, being determined by the relative size of the 
vibrations causing the tone ; of pitch, by their relative 
rapidity ; and of quality, by the relative size and rapidity 
of those compounded together, in order to produce any 
apparently single tone — almost every tone, as science has 
ascertained, being a compound. 

With reference to the significance of these elements, 
while it is true that all, in a general way, represent, as has 
been said, emotive effects, all of them represent also cer- 
tain peculiar phases of such effects. These, as manifested 



ELOCUTIONARY ELEMENTS CLASSIFIED. 35 

in dramatic elocution, of course interpret themselves. In 
discoursive elocution, duration measures the utterance — 
that is, it represents the mind's measurement of its ideas, — 
one indication, by the way, of the appropriateness of the 
poetic term, meters, or measures, which result from giving 
different kinds of duration to syllables ; force energizes 
utterance; pitch aims it ; and quality tempers it. Of the 
last three, again, force imparts physique to delivery ; pitch, 
intellectuality, and quality, emotion or soul, by which, as 
has been explained, is meant that balancing and blending 
of physical and intellectual tendencies which manifest 
the degree in which the man is master or slave of body or 
mind. Or, finally, to make a classification as comprehen- 
sive as possible of all the factors in our problem, it may 
be said that duration, in a general way, represents the 
promptings of the instinctive feelings, and the other three 
elements those of the reflective feelings. Pure instinct 
leads to fast time, reflective instinct to slow time, and 
the general movement or measure is the resultant of 
both. The degrees of instinctive influence connected 
with reflective feeling are represented in force ; of purely 
reflective influence, in pitch ; and of the equilibrium main- 
tained between the instinctive and reflective influences, in 
quality. Besides this, it is well to notice that duration 
and force together are essential to the effects of rhythm, 
and pitch and quality together to those of tunc ; rhythm 
resulting from the measure of time or movement by regu- 
larly recurring impulses perceptible in the physical world ; 
and tune from a similar cause, detected only by scientific 
analysis, operating through vibrations upon our inner 
nervous and mental organism. 

These statements are preliminary. They will be ex- 
plained and illustrated when the proper time comes — that 



36 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

is, in places where they will fall into line, so as to further 
the object of our present undertaking, which, as we must 
remember, is to show not what these forms are, but what, 
in elocution and poetry, they are fitted to represent. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 

The Elements entering into Rhythm, Duration, and Force — Duration : 
Fast Time Instinctive, representing Unimportant Ideas ; Slow Time 
Reflective, representing Important Ideas ; Movement a Combination 
of the Two — The Pause as used in Elocution ; in Poetry, at the ends 
of Lines ; in the Caesura — Run-on and End-stopped Lines — Quantity, 
Short and Long, in Elocution and Poetry ; as produced by Vowels and 
Consonants — Movement or Rhythm as influenced by Pause and Quan- 
tity — Feet of Three Syllables should represent Rapidity — Predominat- 
ing Long Quantity injures English Hexameters — Feet of Four Syllables 
represent Rapidity. 

Al^E have now to consider representation in rhythm, 
resulting, as has been said, from a combination 
of the effects of duration and force. Taking up the first 
of these, it is evident that in elocution duration may be 
short or long, or both ; in the latter case making pos- 
sible all the artistic developments of metre. Both experi- 
ence and reflection show us that in the degree in which 
utterances are instinctive, as they are when under the 
influence of mere spontaneity, they find expression in 
short duration, or — what is the same thing — in fast time. 
But when one becomes conscious of surrounding influ- 
ences to which he must conform his phraseology, these 
put him into a reflective mood, and under the sway of 
his impressions, he stops to think — sometimes to think 
twice — of what he is to say, and so uses slow time ; or, to 
look at the subject from a different view-point, a speaker, 

37 



38 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

when not desirous of conveying to others the impression 
that what he is saying demands their serious considera- 
tion, may talk rapidly. But when he wishes to convey 
the opposite impression — that they should weigh his 
statements with the utmost care, — he talks slowly. From 
noticing facts like these, we learn that duration assigns, 
as has been said, a mental weight or measure to ideas. If 
these appeared for us in space, we could mete them out 
in measurements of space. But as they are heard in 
words, which occupy successive intervals of time, we must 
indicate their weight or bulk, by shortening or lengthen- 
ing their duration. Less or more time given to an utter- 
ance, gives a hearer less or more time in which to think 
of the thoughts expressed in it, suggesting, therefore, 
that, in the opinion of the speaker, they are of less or more 
relative importance. 

This principle we will apply, first, to the elocutionary 
pause, which leads us in reading to check our utterance 
not only at the ends of phrases, as already noticed, but 
also before or after important words, like those preceding 
the bars in these quotations. 

The people | will carry us | gloriously | through | this struggle. 
He is pleasing ; | but | is he honest ? 

The same principle applied to consecutive words causes 
us to read the unimportant parenthesis in the following, 
rapidly : 

He girt his fisher's coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself 
into the sea. — John xxi., 7. 

And the important one in the following, slowly : 

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for he is 
faithful that promised), and let us consider one another, to provoke unto 
love and to good works. — Heb. x., 23, 24. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 39 

According to dramatic elocution, fast time indicates 
that which moves rapidly, and slow time that which moves 
slowly ; e. g. : 



East. 

Slowe 



1 He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 
I He swam the Eske River where ford there was none ; 
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 
The bride had consented, the gallant came late ; 



c For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 
( Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

— Lochinvar: Scott. 

Turning now to poetic form, we find that the same 
principles apply to it. Notice in these stanzas how almost 
all the important words are placed before the pause at 
the end of the line, or before the caesura-pause in the 
middle of it. 

Go not, happy day, 
Till the maiden yields. 
Rosy is the west, 
Rosy is the south, 
Rosy are her cheeks, 
And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 
Falters from her lips, 
Pass and blush the news 
O'er the blushing ships. 
Over blowing seas, 
Over seas at rest, 
Pass the happy news, 
Blush it through the West, 
Till the red-man dance, etc. 

— Ala ud : Tennyson . 

Earth has not any thing | to show more fair ; 
Dull would he be of soul | who could pass by 
A sight so touching | in iis majesty. 

Never did sun | more beautifully steep 

In his first splendor | valley, rock, or hill ; 



40 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Ne'er saw I, never felt, | a calm so deep. 

The river glideth [ at his own sweet will. 
Dear God, the very houses | seem asleep ; 

And all that mighty heart | is lying still. 

— Westminster Bridge : Wordsworth. 

Of man's first disobedience | and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, | whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world j and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, | till one greater man 
Restore us, | and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, heavenly Muse. 

— Paradise Lost, I : Milton. 

Comrades, leave me here a little, | while as yet 't is early morn ; 
Leave me here ; and, when you want me, | sound upon the bugle-horn. 

— Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 

Notice, too, the inartistic effects produced, when the 
voice does not naturally pause where the lines are ended ; 
e. g. : 

Cross down her quiet hands, and smooth 

Down her patient locks of silk, 
Cold and passive as in truth 

You your fingers in spilt milk 
Drew along a marble floor. 

— Little Mattie : Mrs. Browning. 

The speech in the commons, which hits you 

A sketch off, how dungeons must feel, — 
The official despatch, which commits you 

From stamping out groans with your heel, — 
Suggestions in journal or book for 

Good efforts are praised as is meet. 

— Slimming up in Italy : Idem. 

With that he fiercely at him flew, and laid 

On hideous strokes, with most importune might. 

— Faerie Queen : Spenser. 

— And some in file 
Stand spelling false, till one might walk to Mile- 

End green. 

— Sonnet, On the Detraction, etc. : Milton. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 4 1 

In blank verse, these run-on lines, as they are termed, 
in contrast to end-stopped, are less objectionable. Yet, 
considered in themselves, they are inartistic. In another 
place, I intend to speak of Shakespear's use of them. 
The following are examples of this. 

— and then to breakfast with 
What appetite you have. 

—Henry VIII, 3, 2. 

Yet, if that quarrel, Fortune do divorce 
It from the bearer, etc. 

— Idem, 2, 3. 

The effects of duration, however, are produced not only 
by the absence or presence of the pause before and after 
words, but also by shortening or prolonging what is 
termed the quantity of a syllable. In elocution, quantity 
may sometimes be prolonged at will ; in poetry, it is 
usually determined by the letter-sounds forming the 
syllable. The rule is, that syllables composed of short 
vowel-sounds, and of consonant-sounds easy to pronounce, 
are short in an absolute sense, as distinguished from a 
relative sense, of which I shall speak by-and-bye. A pre- 
dominance of these short sounds in the style fits it to 
represent comparatively tinimportant ideas ; e. g. : 

At a pleasant evening party, I had taken down to supper 

One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and Tupper. 

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, 
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to. 

— Ferdinando and Elvira : Gilbert. 

And, also, things that move rapidly, as in the quotation 
from Scott above, as well as in these : 

And he chirped and sang and skipped about, and laughed with laughter 

hearty. 
He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party. 

— Idem. 



42 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Singing through the forest ; 

Rattling over ridges ; 
Shooting under arches , 

Rumbling over bridges ; 
Whizzing through the mountains ; 

Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
Bless me, this is pleasant, 

Riding on the rail. 

— Railroad Rhyme : Saxe. 

A predominance, on the contrary, of long or open 
vowel-sounds, or of consonant-sounds difficult to pro- 
nounce, makes the rhythm move slowly, and fits it, there- 
fore, according to the principles already unfolded, to 
represent important ideas ; c. g. : 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

— Elegy in a Country Church-Yard ; Gray. 

And also tilings that move slowly ; c. g. : 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea ; 
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 

And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

— Idem. 

First march the heavy mules securely slow ; 

O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go. 

— Pope's Tr. of the Iliad. 

Notice in the following how the short syllables in con- 
nection with the irregular accentuation of the rhythm in 
the earlier lines contrast with the long quantities and 
strongly marked accents of the last line. Here we have 
an exact poetic analogue for fast and slow time, as also for 
weak and strong force, as used in elocution : 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 43 

The cherubim descended ; on the ground 
Gliding metorious, as evening mist 
Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, 
And gathers round fast at the laborer's heel 
Homeward returning. High in front advanced 
The brandished sword of God before them blazed. 

— Par. Lost, 12 : Milton. 

Here, again, notice the unimportance and rapidity ex- 
pressed in the italicized words : 

Each creek and bay 
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 
Of fish that with their fins and shining scales 
Glide tinder the green wave. 

— Idem, 7. 

Notice in the following, too, how, in the lines beginning 
with A league of grass, Tennyson, by lengthening the 
unaccented syllables in washed, broad, Waves, and creeps, 
retards the movement of his verse to make it represent 
the slow flowing of the water: 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, looms the garden that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
And sitting, muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
Although between it and the garden lies 
A league of grass, washed by a slow, broad stream, 
That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar, 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
Crowned with the minster-towers. 

— The Gardener s Daughter. 

Slowness, in the instances already mentioned, has been 
produced mainly by long vowel-sounds. In the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth lines of the following quotation, all of 



44 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

which is to the point here, it is produced by consonant- 
sounds combined so as to be difficult to pronounce : 

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, 

And the smooth strain in smoother numbers flows. 

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 

The hoarse rough verse should "like the torrent roar. 

When Ajax strives some rocks vast weight to throw, 

The line too labors and the words move slow ; 

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 

Flies o'er the bending corn, and skims along the plain. 

— Essay on Criticism : Pope. 

It has been intimated that in poetry there is, besides an 
absolute, a relative quantity of syllables. This latter de- 
pends upon the places in the verse where the accent falls — 
i. e., upon the measure, which itself, as has been said, re- 
sults from the combined effects of the tendencies, already 
considered, to movement and to rest, or to fast and slow 
time. Just as intelligence measures off phrases and words 
to represent their relative importance, so psychic emotion, 
or the artistic feeling within us which regulates our con- 
structive method, seems to take satisfaction in making 
their sounds conform to what in a subtle way, perhaps, it 
recognizes to be representative of the movements of life, — 
movements, which — to say nothing about those which are 
external to him — every living man experiences in the re- 
curring tread of his feet when walking, in the heaving of 
his chest when breathing, in the beating of his heart, and 
even in the vibrating of his nerves when receiving or 
imparting impressions. But whatever may be the cause 
or character of these metrical arrangements, which will 
be unfolded more fully under the head of force, they 
exist, and have an important bearing on those measure- 
ments of ideas which we have been considering. 

When we are reading verse, the accented syllables seem 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 45 

to be used at regular intervals ; that is to say, about the 
same amount of time is expected to intervene between 
these syllables, no matter by how many unaccented ones 
they may be separated. Hence, as a rule, the more unac- 
cented syllables there are in a line, or — what is the same 
thing — in a measure, the more rapidly is it uttered. Each 
of the four following lines, for instance, is read in nearly 
the same time. Yet the first contains only seven syllables, 
and the last eleven. Of course, these latter, in order to be 
uttered in the same time as the preceding seven, must be 
read more rapidly. 

She had dreams all yester night 

Of her own betrothed knight, 

And she in the midnight wood will pray 

For the weal of her lover that 's far away. 

— Christabel : Coleridge. 

Rapid movement represents, as has been indicated, 
what is comparatively unimportant, light, or trivial in its 
character. Notice, therefore, the inappropriateness of the 
metre used to express the thought in the following : 

My soul is beset 

With grief and dismay ; 
I owe a vast debt, 

And nothing can pay. 

I must go to prison, 

Unless the dear Lord, 
Who died and is risen, 

His mercy afford. 

— Guest's History of English Rhymes. 

Especially, as contrasted with the following expression of 
the same thought : 

My former hopes are fled, 
My terror now begins j 



46 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

I feel alas ! that I am dead 
In trespasses, and sins. 

— Idem. 

For the reasons given, metres in which the accented 
syllables are fewer than the unaccented ones, are favorites 
with those who wish to describe events or scenes charac- 
terized by rapidity of movement, — in such poems, for 
instance, as Scott's Lochinvar : 

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best. 

or Read's Sheridan's Ride, e. g. : 

Up from the South at break of day, 
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, 

or Browning's How They Brought the Good News from 
Ghent, a poem, which, with its galloping measures, is 
probably the best phonetic representation of a horseback 
ride in the language, equally true to the requirements of 
discoursive and of dramatic elocution : 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

44 Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; 

14 Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through. 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

The metre of which we are now speaking is also that of 
the classic hexameter, used by Homer and Virgil. In 
most of the English imitations^ of this metre, however, 
the easy flow of the movement, which, as readers of Greek 
and Latin know, is its chief characteristic, fails to be pro- 
duced. One reason for this is that our language, largely 
because it lacks the grammatical terminations of the 
classic tongues, contains fewer short syllables then they ; 
and, in the place of the only foot of three syllables allowed 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 47 

in their hexameter — I mean the dactyl, containing one 
long and two short syllables, — our poets often use long 
syllables only, influenced to do this, probably, by the 
false theory that quantity has nothing to do with English 
metres. Another reason is, that notwithstanding the 
poverty of our language in short syllables, many seem to 
think that the hexameter necessarily requires a large 
number of them. But Greek and Latin lines are frequent 
in which measures containing short syllables are few, 
e. g. : 

apvvjuevos rjv rs ipvxv v KOL ^ yoffror erai pcov. — Homer. 

Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt. — Virgil. 

Both of these causes serve to make our English hex- 
ameters slow and heavy. Besides this, most of those 
who write them, misled by the notion that they must 
crowd as many syllables as possible into their lines, are 
tempted to use too many words, and thus to violate an- 
other principle not of poetry only, but of rhetoric. Take 
the following, for instance, from Longfellow's CJiildren 
of the Lord 's Supper : 

Weeping he spake in these words : and now at the beck of the old man, 
Knee against knee, they knitted a wreath round the altar's enclosure. 
Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly, 
With him the children read ; at the close, with tremulous accents, 
Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon them. 

An English verse representing accurately — what is all 
that is worth representing — the movement of the classic 
hexameter, would read more like this, which, itself, too, 
would read better, did it contain fewer dactyls ; but to 
show the possibilities of our verse these have been inten- 
tionally crowded into it : 



48 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Weeping he told them this, and they, at the villager's bidding, 

Knitting with knee to knee a wreath at the altar's railing, 

Knelt as he softly led in the prayer of the consecration. 

In it the children joined, until in a tremulous accent 

Closing the prayer he had asked for the Lord's benediction upon them. 

This passage from Longfellow is a typical specimen of 
what is called English hexameter. Here is another (not 
so good), from Frothingham's translation — in many re- 
spects an admirable one — of Goethe's Hermann and Doro- 
thea : 

Thitherward up the new street as I hasted, a stout-timbered wagon 
Drawn by two oxen I saw, of that region the largest and strongest, 
While with vigorous step a maiden was walking beside them ; 
And, a long staff in her hand, the two powerful creatures was guiding, 
Urging them now, now holding them back, with skill did she drive them. 

Not until such lines have been reduced to a form more 
like the following, can we be prepared to debate whether 
or not the effects of the classic hexameter can be repro- 
duced in English. Those, too, who choose to compare 
these lines with the original, will find this translation more 
literal than the last. 

Now my eyes, as I made my way along the new street there, 
Chanced to fall on a wagon, built of the heaviest timber, 
Drawn by a pair of steers of the largest stock and stoutest, 
By their side a maid with vigorous step was walking. 
Holding a long staff up to guide the strong pair onward, 
Starting them now, then stopping them, deftly did she drive them. 

In these last lines, there are more spondaic verses, — 
verses, that is, in which the fifth foot contains two sylla- 
bles — than were often used in the classic hexameters. 
But this fact does not change the general effect of the 
movement. Matthew Arnold says of the following, that, 
" it is the one version of any part of the Iliad which in 
some degree reproduces for me the original effect of 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 49 

Homer." It is a translation from the third book made 
by Dr. Hawtrey of Eton College : 

Clearly the rest I beheld of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia, 

Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember. 

Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, — 

Castor fleet in the car, — Polydeukes brave with the cestus, — 

Own dear brethren of mine, — one parent loved us as infants. 

Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedaemon ? 

Or though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, 

Dare they not enter the fight, or stand in the council of heroes, 

All for fear of the shame, and the taunts my crime has awakened ? 

Instead of two we sometimes find three consecutive 
unaccented syllables, combined with which there is occa- 
sionally a slight but secondary accent on the second of 
these. As the general effect of this kind of rhythm is to 
cause four syllables to be uttered in the time usually given 
to two, it increases the rapidity of the movement ; e. g.: 

The king has come to marshal us in all his armor dressed, 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest, 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high ; 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 
Down all the line in deafening shout, God save our lord the king ! 

" And if my standard-bearer fall, — as fall full well he may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, — 
Press where ye see my white plume shine amid the ranks of war, 
And be your oriflame to-day, the helmet of Navarre." 

— The Battle of Ivry : Macaulay. 



CHAPTER V. 

ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 

Force, representing Instinctive Tendency of Utterance, or Physical 
Energy — Different Kinds of Force — the Degree of Force — Loud 
and Soft Force as used in Elocution — Their Poetic Analogues — Loudness 
and Softness, Strength and Weakness, Great and Slight Weight as rep- 
resented by Long or Short Accented or Unaccented Syllables. 

r FHE next rhythmical element of expression to be 
considered, is force. This is to sounds what 
different degrees of light and shade are to objects of 
sight ; and is essential to the effects of rhythm in the 
same way that shading is to those of proportion. In 
elocution, no one in feeble physical health can manifest 
an excess of force, while, at times, without it, his delivery 
may be characterized by the greatest amount of intelli- 
gence and soul, of thought and the emotion that is con 
nected with thought. For these reasons, it seems right 
to infer that force represents physique rather than intellect 
or spiritual feeling; in other words, energy that is instinc- 
tive and connected with the physical nature rather than 
any thing that is reflective and connected with the psychi- 
cal. As used for emphasis, force differs mainly in three 
regards, which, according to the principle of classification 
pursued hitherto, may be stated thus : first, on its purely 
instinctive or physical side, it differs in degree — it may be 
loud or soft ; second, on its reflective or intellectual side, 
it differs in gradation — it may be strongest at the beginning, 

50 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 5 I 

middle, or end of the utterance of a syllable or word ; and 
third, in emotive relations, affected more or less by both 
instinctive and reflective influences, it differs in regularity 
— it may be abrupt or smooth. 

Let us consider, first, the degrees of force. It is proba- 
bly not necessary to illustrate the statement that, in 
elocution loud force indicates a great degree of energy, 
and soft force a slight degree of it. As loud and soft are 
relative terms, it is evident that in poetry their analogues 
are found in forms in which the relative force is decidedly 
greater on certain syllables than on others ; therefore, in 
metres in which the accents are strongly marked. This 
condition is realized, as a rule, where the accented syllables 
are long, in quantity, and the unaccented short. Here 
are metres of this character: 

Louder, louder chant the lay ; 

Waken lords and ladies gay ! 

Tell them youth and mirth and glee 

Run a course, as well as we ; 

Time, stern huntsman ! who can balk ? 

Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk ? 

Think of this and rise with day, 

Gentle lords and ladies gay ! 

— Hunting Song : Scott. 

When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
Among the tents I paused and sung, 
The distant battle flashed and rung. 

— Two Voices : Tennyson. 

Strike, and when the fight is over, 

If ye look in vain for me, 
Where the dead are lying thickest 

Look for him who was Dundee. 

— Burial March of Dundee : Aytoun. 

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word ! 

— Hymn : Kirkham. 



52 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

If both the accented and unaccented syllables are short 
in quantity, the movement is rapid, indicating, as has been 
said before, thought that is unimportant ; and we have a 
rattling effect, analogous to loudness that does not convey 
an impression of strength — e. g. : 

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, 
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to. 

— Ferdinando and Elvira : Gilbert. 

Now elderly men of the bachelor crew, 

With wrinkled hose 

And spectacled nose, 
Don't marry at all ; — you may take it as true, 

If ever you do, 

The step you will rue, 
For your babes will be elderly, elderly too. 

— The Precocious Baby : Idem. 

" O maidens," said Pattison, touching his hat, 
" Don't blubber, my dears, for a fellow like that ; 
Observe I 'm a very superior man, 
A much better fellow than Angus McClan." 

— Ellen Mc Jones Aberdeen : Idem. 

If both the accented and unaccented syllables are long 
in quantity, the movement is slow, indicating thought that 
is important, and the accent is less decidedly marked. This 
gives us the poetical equivalent for force characterized by 
weight and strength, though not necessarily by loudness — 
e. g. : 

O good gray head which all men knew ; 

O voice from which their omens all men drew ; 

O iron nerve to true occasion true ; 

O fall'n at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four square to all the winds that blew ! 

— Ode on the Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 

The woods shall wear their robes of praise, 
The soft winds softly sigh, 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 53 

And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
Melt down the amber sky. 

— My Psalm : Whittier. 

Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes 

With smiling features glisten ; 
For, lo, our day bursts up the skies, — 

Lean out your souls and listen. 

— To-day and To-morrow : Gerald Massey. 

When the accented and unaccented syllables are indis- 
criminately long and short, the accent is least decidedly 
marked, and we have the poetic equivalent for soft force. 
This may convey an impression of strength, if it con- 
tain several long syllables — e. g. : 

Never any more 

While I live, 
Need I hope to see his face 

As before. 
Once his love grown chill 

Mine may strive, — 
Bitterly we re-embrace, 

Single still. 

— In a Year : R. Browning. 

And so my silent moan begins and ends, 

No world's laugh or world's taunt, no pity of friends 

Or sneer of foes, with this my torment blends. 

— Only a Woman : Mulock. 

But it must convey an impression of weakness, if made 
up mainly of short syllables — e. g. : 

Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 
The punishment of dissolute days ; in fine, 
Just or unjust, alike seem miserable, 
For oft alike both come to evil end. 

— Samson Agonisles : Milton. 

— Let them slip down, 
Not one accompanying his declining feet. 

— Timon /., 1 : Shakespear. 



54 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART 

— Nothing routs us 
But the villany of our fears. 

— Cymbeline V. f 2: Idem. 

Here are distinctively imitative effects, first, of loud- 
ness : 

And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart, as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife. 

Is it peace or war ? better war ! loud war by land and by sea ! 
War with a hundred battles and shaking a hundred thrones. 

— Mattd : Tennyson. 

And here of loudness with more or less strength : 

On came the whirlwind, — steel-gleams broke 
Like lightning through the rolling smoke ; 

The war was waked anew. 
Three hundred cannon mouths roared loud, 
And from their throats, with flash and cloud, 

Their showers of iron threw. 
Beneath their fire in full career, 
Rushed on the ponderous cuirasier ; 
The lancer couched his ruthless spear, 
And, hurrying as to havoc near, 

The cohorts' eagles flew. 
In one dark torrent, broad and strong, 
The advancing onset rolled along, 
Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim, 
That from the shroud of smoke and flame 
Peal'd wildly forth the imperial name. 

— The Charge at Waterloo : Scott. 

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes — 
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks 
Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown, 
Then rustling, crackling, crashing thunder down. 

— Iliad, 23 : Pope. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 55 

Here of weight or strength : 

"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
The line too labors, and the words move slow. 

— Essay on Criticism : Pope. 

Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow 
Bent their broad faces toward us, and addressed 
Their motion. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

Here of softness : 

And let some strange mysterious dream 

Wave at his wings in aery stream, 

Of lively portraiture display'd, 

Softly on my eyelids laid. 

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 

Above, about, or underneath, 

Sent by some spirit to mortal's good, 

Or the unseen genius of the wood. 

— II Penseroso : Milton. 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at iny chamber door. 

— The Raven : Poe. 
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide, 
And ships secure without their haulsers ride. 

— Odyssey, 3 : Pope. 
There is sweet music here that softer falls 

Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass. 

— The Lotus Eaters : Tennyson. 

And here of weakness : 

So he with difficulty and labor hard 
Moved on with difficulty and labor he. 

— Par. Lost, 2 : Milton. 
So she low-toned, while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening, then looked. Pale was the perfect face ; 
The bosom with long sighs labored ; and meek 
Seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 



$6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Look once more now at the passage from weak force 
to strong, as well as from fast time to slow, in the fol- 
lowing: 

The cherubim descended ; on the ground 
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist 
Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, 
And gathers round fast at the laborer's heel 
Homeward returning. High in front advanced, 
The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed, 
Fierce as a comet. 

— Par. Lost. 12 : Milton. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FORCE AS THE SOURCE AND INTERPRETER OF POETIC 
MEASURES. 

Gradations of Force or Stress, representing Reflective Influence exerted on 
Instinctive Tendency — What is represented by the Different Kinds of 
Elocutionary Stress — Why Elocutionary Stress corresponds to Poetic 
Measure — Classification of English Poetic Measures, and their Classic 
Analogues — What is represented by Initial Double Measure — Its Classic 
Form — By Terminal Double Measure — Why used in Our Hymns — 
Its Classic Form — Triple Measures ; Median — Its Classic Form — Initial 
Triple Measure — Could also be termed Compound Measure, corre- 
sponding to Compound Stress — Its Classic Forms — Its Use in Greek 
Paeonics — In Pathos, corresponding to Tremulous Stress — Terminal 
Triple Measure — Can correspond to Thorough Stress — Its Classic 
Forms — Blending of Different Triple Measures — Of Triple and Double 
Measures to prevent Monotony — Quadruple Measures, Initial and Ter- 
minal — Blending of all Kinds of Measures to represent Movements. 

\\f E pass on now to the next way, in which the force em- 
ployed in emphasis has been said to differ — namely, 
in gradation, or what is technically termed stress. In dis- 
coursive elocution, the force or exertion necessary for the 
pronunciation of any given syllable or word may be used 
because of an internal or an external motive, or of a com- 
bination of the two ; in other words, either because a man 
desires to express an idea for his own sake ; or because he 
wishes to impress it upon otJiers ; or because he wishes to do 
both. In the first case, the sound bursts forth explosively, 
as if the speaker were conscious of nothing but his own 

57 



58 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

vocal organs to prevent the accomplishment of his object ; 
and the loudest part of the sound is on the first part of 
the utterance. This is the most instinctive, and, in this 
sense, physical, form of stress. In the second case, the 
sound is pushed forth expulsively, as if the man were 
conscious of an outside possibility of opposition, and of the 
necessity of pressing his point ; and the loudest sound is 
at the end of the utterance. This is a deliberative stress, 
force given with a design ; and, in this sense, is reflective 
and intellectual. In the third case, the sound is uttered 
so that it blends the effects of both the other methods, 
either as in the effusive median stress, or in the 
ways indicated in the descriptions given below of com- 
pound, thorough, and tremulous stress. In dramatic 
elocution, of course, these same methods would represent 
things having a bursting or pushing sound or tendency, 
or both of these together. 

These two methods of applying energy to articulation, 
and different combinations of them, give us the different 
kinds of stress : termed, if the chief force is used at the 
beginning of the accented utterance, Initial, indicated 
thus >, and used in this : 

Up, comrades, up ! — in Rokeby's halls 
Ne'er be it said our courage falls ! 

If at its end, Terminal, <, and used in this : 

Let the consequences be what they ma)\ I am determined to proceed. 

If in its middle, Median, <>, and used in this: 

O joy to the people and joy to the throne. 

If at both its beginning and end, Compound, X, and used 
in this: 

Ye blocks, ye stones, ye worse than senseless things. 



FORCE. 



59 



If at its beginning, middle, and end, with strong force, 
Thorough X^> and used in this : 

Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly. 
O grave, where is thy victory ? 

If at all three, with weak force, Tremulous v~^, and used 
in this : 

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man. 

It may be difficult for those not acquainted with elocu- 
tion to detect at once what is meant by stress ; but it will 
become clearer as we proceed. The first important thing 
for us to notice in connection with it, is that, though 
given mainly on the accented syllable, it is often, es- 
pecially in flexible voices, communicated to more than 
one syllable. In the following, for instance, the same kind 
of compound stress is used on the one syllable in hard and 
on the two syllables in cruel, and might be used on the 
three syllables in a word like villanous, were it substituted 
for cruel. 

X > < 

O ye hard hearts, ye cru-el men of Rome. 

So it is with other kinds of stress. The three syllables 
in misery might receive the same gradations in force as 
the one in woe. It is owing to this fact with reference to 
force that analogies, important though subtle, may be de- 
tected between different kinds of stress and different kinds 
of poetic measure. An accent, as has been noticed, falls on 
every second, third, or fourth syllable of a verse, and the 
number of accents in a line determines the number 
of feet or measures in it, a foot being composed of one 
accented syllable and, as the case may be, of one, two, 
or three unaccented syllables. Below, separated by bars, 
will be found all the principal kinds of feet. A mo- 



6o POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

merit's glance at them will detect that the character of 
each measure is determined by the place in it, whether its 
beginning, its middle, or its end, on which the accent falls. 
In the same way, the character of any given kind of stress 
is determined by the place in the utterance, whether com- 
posed of one or of more syllables, on which the chief force 
falls. In other words, poetic accent influences syllables 
grouped in feet or measures, precisely as elocutionary 
stress influences syllables grouped in words. For this 
reason, the measures in the paragraph below are named 
according to the analogy between the places in them on 
which the accents fall, and the places in words made most 
prominent by the different kinds of stress. The Greek 
names for corresponding measures are also given. 

Initial measure, or initial double measure, is determined 
by what may be called initial accent, and corresponds, if 
composed of one long syllable followed by one short, to 
the Greek trochee or choree ; if of two long, to the Greek 
spondee ; e. g. : 

Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers. 

Terminal measure, or terminal double measure, is de- 
termined by what may be called terminal accent, and 
corresponds to the Greek iambus, composed of one short 
followed by one long syllable ; e. g. : 

The train j from out | the cas | tie drew. 

hiitial triple measure is usually the same as the Greek 
dactyl. 

Over the | roadways and | on through the | villages. 

Median, or median triple measure, is usually the same as 
the Greek amphibrach ; e. g. : 

There came to | the beach a | poor exile | of Erin. 



FORCE. 6 1 

Terminal triple measure is usually the same as the Greek 
anapaest ; e. g. : 

O'er the land | of the free | and the home j of the brave. 

Compound triple measure is the same as the Greek 
amphimacrus, or as feet used in certain of the paeonic 
stanzas. 

Nearer my | God to thee | E'en though it | be a cross. 

Diinitial quadruple measure is usually the same as the 
Greek ditrochee, with a primary accent on every first, 
and a secondary on every third syllable ; e. g. : 

Roses are in | blossom and the | rills are filled with | water-cresses. 

D {terminal quadruple measure is usually the same as the 
Greek diiambus, with a primary accent on every second ; 
and a secondary on every fourth syllable ; e. g. : 

The king has come | to marshal us, 

Quadruple measures might have their primary accent on 
their third or fourth syllable, i. e., on their final double 
foot, and be termed, therefore, Final diinitial or Final 
ditermhial ; or they might be Compound, having an initial 
and terminal foot, and be termed, to indicate the foot 
coming first, Initial-terminal or Terminal-imtml I can 
recall, however, no English measures of these kinds. 

Now let us see what ideas each of these measures, ac- 
cording to elocutionary analogy, is fitted to represent. 
We will begin with Initial stress, called radical also. As 
has been said, this characterizes utterances tiiat burst forth 
abruptly with their loudest sound at their beginning, as in 
the sentence, " Go on, I say; get along; I tell you I '11 
not wait for you ; move on." In fulfilment of the princi- 
ples stated above, this stress is used when one seems to be 



62 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

conscious of nothing but his own organs to prevent the 
expression of his ideas, and when therefore his main wish 
is to express himself so as to be distinctly understood. In 
its milder form, it serves to render articulation clear and 
utterance precise ; in its stronger form, it indicates great 
physical momentum, and therefore bold, and sometimes 
vehement assurance, positivencss, and dictation. 

Bearing in mind now what has been shown before, that 
the important places in a line of verse are its beginning, 
before which, and its end, after which, the voice of the 
reader naturally pauses, it may be said, that whenever 
lines containing feet of two syllables begin or end with a 
foot, the first syllable of which is accented, the emphasis 
characterizing the verse is the same in general tendency as 
when single words receive initial stress. It is possible, for 
instance, to read the following with any kind of elocu- 
tionary stress ; but the arrangement of accented and un- 
accented syllables is such, that, when read without design, 
one naturally gives to each foot the kind of emphasis 
characterizing initial stress. We may call this, therefore, 
the measure of initial accent or Initial measure. Here is 
an example of its milder form, representing, like initial 
stress, clearness and precision of statement : 

Take the open air, the more you take the better ; 

Follow nature's laws to the very letter. 

Let the doctors go to the Bay of Biscay, 

Let alone the gin, the brandy, and the whiskey. 

— Advice : Anon. 

Go where glory waits thee, 

But when fame elates thee, etc. — 

— Go Where, etc. : Moore. 

Should you ask me, whence these stories, 
Whence these legends and traditions, 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 63 

With the odor of the forests, 
With the dew and damp of meadows, 
With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
Willi the rushing of great rivers, 
With their frequent repetitions, 
And their wild reverberations 
As of thunder in the mountains ? 
I should answer, I should tell you, 
" From the forests and the prairies." 

— Hiawatha : Longfellow. 

Then with deep sonorous clangor, 
Calmly answering their sweet anger, 
When the wrangling bells had ended, 
Slowly struck the clock eleven, 
And from out the silent heaven, 
Silence on the town descended. 

— Carillon : Long -fellow. 

And this is the stronger form, representing bold assur- 
ance, positiveness, and dictation : 

Honor, riches, marriage, blessing, 
Long continuance and increasing, 
Hourly joys be still upon you ! 
Juno sings her blessings on you. 

— Tempest, iv., 1 : Shakespear. 

Shake the casements, 

Break the painted 

Panes that flame with gold and crimson ; 

Scatter them like leaves of autumn. 

— Golden Legend : Longfellow. 

As has been said, this metre existed among the Greeks 
in two principal forms. The first was composed of one 
long syllable followed by a short, and called Trochee from 
rpexoJ, to run, or rpoxo?, a wheel, and also Choree from 
Xopsio-, belonging to a chorus or dance. These terms in 
themselves signify little. They might be applied to many 
other movements. But Schmidt, emerging for a moment 



64 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

from the universal lack of endeavor to interpret the 
meanings of metres, which characterizes the voluminous 
literature on this subject, tells us, in his " Rhythmic and 
Metric of the Classic Languages," that it is "a somewhat 
vivacious measure, serving for the expression of individual 
feeling," and this is all he says ; but the correspondence 
between this, and saying, as has just been done here, that 
the metre has an internal motive and represents assurance, 
positivcncss, and dictation, will be recognized by all. The 
other Greek form of this metre was the Spondee, so called 
from (T/tovdai, the drink-offerings, and was used in religious 
hymns, like this, for instance, to Helios by Dionysius : 

evcpa/iiszrGo -itdi aiOr/p 
yrj xai TtuvroS uai nvoiai. 

This is simply initial measure to which has been add- 
ed the effect of predominating long quantity on unac- 
cented syllables. The spondaic hymn would sound some- 
thing like the following, which is an attempt to reproduce 
the effect of the Latin original : 

DIES IRvE, DIES ILLA. 

Day of wrath, that day of burning, 
All shall melt to ashes turning, 
All foretold by seers discerning. 

5jJ . ■§■ JyC 5|S 

All aghast then, Death shall shiver, 
And great Nature's frame shall quiver, 
When the graves their dead deliver. 

— Translated by A. Coles. 

The limited number of final syllables in our language 
which can end effectively lines of this kind, as well as the 
positive assurance expressed by them, sometimes passing, 
as in the Dies Ircc above, into almost fatalistic acquiescence, 
gives initial measure little popularity with our own hymn 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 65 

writers. A few instances, indeed, can be cited of the use 
of a similar measure, but almost always in connection 
with occasional terminal measures, as in this ; e. g. : 

Glorious things of thee are spoken, 

Zion, city of our God. 
He whose word can not be broken, 

Formed thee for his own abode. 

— Newton. 

All of our Long, Common, and Short Metre hymns, 
however, are written entirely in terminal measures. And 
this is what we should expect, for these measures them- 
selves, as well as their tunes, to which I shall refer by-and- 
bye, express the effort of the soul as it reaches forth with 
a pushing persistency and determination toward that which 
is beyond itself, which means in the case of religious 
thought, aspiration, — a feeling especially in harmony with 
the spirit of the modern church. 

The second kind of stress, called Terminal) and also 
Final and Vanishing, is applied when an utterance begins 
softly, and gradually increases in force, till it ends with its 
loudest sound. It seems to be used, as has been said, 
when one is conscious of outside opposition, obliging 
him to press his point, and so when his main wish is to 
impress his thoughts upon others. Its milder form may 
indicate merely complaint or peevishness, demanding con- 
sideration, as when the child whines out, " I sha' n't "; its 
stronger form indicates energy used with an intelligent 
design, and so a pushing pertinacity, persistency, or deter- 
mination, in view of what is either liked or disliked, as 
in the exclamation, used either in banter or contempt, 
"Aha ! " or in the sentences, "I am determined to remain 
true to my cause," " I despise the man." 

The arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables 



66 POETRY ASA REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

analogous to this is found evidently, for reasons similar to 
those already given, in a line containing feet of two 
syllables, that begins or ends with a foot, the first syllable 
of which is unaccented. We may call the following, 
therefore, Terminal measure. Here is its milder form, 
representing complaint demanding consideration : 

let the solid ground 

Not fail beneath my feet, 
Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet. 

— Maud : Tennyson. 

Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
Nor peace within nor calm around, 
Nor that content surpassing wealth 
The sage in meditation found, 
And walked with inward glory crowned. 

— The Sun is Warm : Shelley. 

Here is its stronger form, representing earnest persist- 
ency, determination : 

If that the world and love were young, 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
These pretty pleasures might me move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 

— Nymph's Reply : Raleigh. 

1 cannot hide that some have striven, 
Achieving calm to whom was given 
The joy that mixes earth with heaven ; 

Who rowing hard against the stream, 
Saw distant gates of EMen gleam, 
And did not dream it was a dream. 

— Two Voices : Tennyson. 

Think not, thou eagle Lord of Rome, 

And master of the world, 
Though victory's banner o'er thy dome 

In triumph now is furled, 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 6? 

I would address thee as thy slave, 
But as the bold should greet the brave. 

— Caractacus : Bernard Barton. 

As applied to spiritual relations, this pushing earnest- 
ness of terminal measure properly represents, as was said 
a moment ago, aspiration. Hence the use of the metre in 
most of our popular hymns ; e. g. : 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 
My soul, be on thy guard. 

The Greek measure corresponding to this, was the 
Iambic, a term supposed to have been derived from 
toLTZTO to drive forth, shoot, assail. Prof. J ebb, in his 
" Greek Literature," says it " was first used " (as in the case 
of the aha/ cited above)/' in raillery, which entered into the 
worship of Demeter as into a modern carnival." " It was 
the form in which the more intense and original spirits 
loved to utter their scorn, or their deeper thought and 
emotion." It " was fitted to express any pointed 
thought." This explanation of its uses evidently cor- 
responds with that which has just been said of it here, 
viz. : that it represents an external aim, and is indicative 
of petulancy, push, persistency, determination, and in certain 
cases of aspiration. Schmidt endeavors to identify this 
metre with the Trochaic, because in this, as in that, every 
other syllable is accented. Of course, the rhythmical 
movements of both metres are the same, except at the 
beginnings and ends of lines. But, unfortunately for 
Schmidt's theory, these two places in the line give it its 
whole character, and a difference in them necessitates a 
difference in the ideas which the lines represent, and this 
not only in their metres, but also, as we shall find, by-and- 
bye, in their tunes. The two metres, therefore, should not 
be identified. 



68 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Let us pass on now to triple measures. When con- 
sidering duration, it was noticed that, as contrasted with 
double measures, the triple give to the movement the 
effect of greater rapidity, inasmuch as the time usually 
allotted to two syllables is in them allotted to three. It 
is important to notice here, in addition to this, that in the 
degree in which the accented syllable in triple measures 
is rendered emphatic, there is a tendency to give it the 
same time as that given to the two unaccented syllables 
in the same foot, and thus, by way of contrast, to thrust 
it into greater prominence. Accordingly, initial and 
terminal accents in triple measure are stronger forms of 
the same in double measure. They convey, too, an added 
effect of rapidity > representing, therefore, more drift and 
momentum in the general thought expressed in the 
passage. But in triple measure there is also a middle 
syllable in the foot, which syllable, as well as the one 
before it or after it, can be emphasized. This fact 
gives rise to a measure of a new kind, which, as it influ- 
ences somewhat both of the other kinds of triple 
measure, needs to be considered before them. 

The accent given on the middle of the foot corresponds 
to what elocutionists term Median stress, in which the 
voice swells out on the middle of an utterance, as in read- 
ing the line : " O joy to the people and joy to the 
throne." Median stress begins like terminal, indicating, 
like it a reflective motive, — a desire to impress one's 
thought on others ; and ends like initial, indicating an 
instinctive motive, — a desire to express one's thought for 
its own sake. The two forms together seem to indi- 
cate, therefore, any thing that is felt to be worth the 
attention both of others and of one's self. It is accordingly 
the natural expression for emotion or for eloqueiice of 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 69 

thought, for any thing deemed to be intrinsically attrac- 
tive and interesting whether because beautiful or pathetic. 
Notice how graceful is the general effect of this kind of 
verse : 

There is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra, 

Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow ; 

In deep valleyed Desmond — a thousand wild fountains 

Come down to that lake from their home in the mountains. 

High sons of the lyre, O how proud was the feeling, 

To think while alone through that solitude stealing, 

Though loftier minstrels green Erin could number, 

I only awoke your wild harp from its slumber, 

And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains 

The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains. 

— Gougaune Barra : y. y. Callanan. 

" What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, 
And singing all wrong the old song of the Coolun ? " 
There 's a form at the casement, — the form of her true love, — 
And he whispers with face bent : " I 'm waiting for you, love ; 
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, 
We '11 rove in the grove while the moon 's shining brightly." 

— The Spinning- Wheel Song : y. F. Waller. 

Median measures are frequently changed to terminal 
measures at the ends of the lines ; e. g. : 

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view. 

The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, 
And every loved spot which my infancy knew. 

Old Oaken Bucket : S. Woodworth. 

In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay, 

His hammock swung loose to the sport of the wind : 

But watch-worn and weaiy his cares flew away, 
And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind. 

— The Sailor Boy's Dream : Dimond. 

Society, friendship, and love, 
Divinely bestowed upon man. 



JO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

O had I the wings of a dove, 

How soon would I taste you again ! 

— Selkirk : Cowper. 

The following are terminal triple measures, but owing to 
the fact that there is no break in the regularity of the 
metre after the pause at the end of each line, their effect 
is about the same as that of median triple measures : 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, 
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side 
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 

In her sepulchre there by the sea, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

— Annabel Lee : Poe. 

The Greek metre corresponding to median is the Amphi- 
brach, from ccficpi, on both sides, and fipaxvZ, short. Scholars 
usually treat it as a form of the anapaest or terminal triple 
measure, and as significant of the same mental tendency. 
As the last two quotations have shown, these two measures 
are often used interchangeably, and, when we come to 
treat of terminal triple measure, we shall find that there 
is a reason why this should be so. Any further considera- 
tion, therefore, of what the measure represents may better 
be deferred until then. 

In uttering measures termed Initial Triple, of which 
examples are given below, it will be noticed that there is a 
natural tendency to use more emphasis with the second 
than with the first of the unaccented syllables, producing 
therefore a stronger tone at the end as well as at the 
beginning of the measure. In this respect a foot thus ac- 
cented corresponds in effect to what elocutionists term 
Compound stress; and for this reason might be termed 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. J\ 

Compound measure. Compound stress characterizes an 
utterance the first and last parts of which receive more 
force than its middle. It may be used for a strong form of 
initial stress, especially where there are long slides, the 
beginnings and ends of which need to be brought out 
with distinctness, as in the word now in the question : 
" What will you do now ? " or it may be used, as its form 
(X) suggests, especially with abrupt irregular rhythm, for 
a combination of the ideas expressed by initial and termi- 
nal stress — i. e., for assured, positive, and dictati?ig earnest- 
ness, persistency, and determination, as in these words that 
are italicised. 

" You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things." 

Here are examples of the poetic equivalent for this 
kind of stress, indicating persistency or determination. 
They introduce occasionally an initial double measure ; 
e. g. : 

Come away, come away, hark to the summons ; 
Come in your war array, gentles and commons, 

;ji * * Hs * ♦ 

Come as the winds come when forests are rended , 
Come as the waves come when navies are stranded ; 
Faster, come faster, come faster and faster, 
Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master. 

— Gathering Song of Donald the Black : Scott. 

Flashed all their sabres bare, 
Flashed as they turned in air, 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army while 

All the world wondered : 
Plunged in the battery-smoke 
Right through the line they broke ; 

Cossack and Russian 
Reeled from the sabre-stroke. 

— Charge of the Light Brigade ■ Tennyson. 



J 2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Several Greek measures correspond to this, chiefly per- 
haps the Dactyl homd axrvXoZ, a finger, which, like the 
measure, consists of three members, divided at the joints 
into one long and two short parts. Schmidt tells us that 
this " was used (especially in choric poetry) to denote 
an exalted God-trusting state of mind, or to express warn- 
ings with solemn earnestness " — both of which uses could 
evidently be made of a metre representing the ideas just 
attributed to this. The measure corresponds also to 
Schmidt's representation of the paeonic, which with some 
quadruple feet derived its main effect from feet contain- 
ing a long syllable followed by a short and a long. This, 
as will be noticed, is more nearly analogous to Compound 
stress than is the dactyl. But in English both measures 
would be read in nearly the same way, and would always 
be used interchangeably. The paeonic measure, according 
to Schmidt, indicated "overwhelming enthusiasm" as well 
as another state to be spoken of in a moment. Of course, 
the " enthusiasm " here mentioned can very properly be 
classed as a manifestation of the highest degree of assur- 
ance and positiveness, which have been said to characterize 
this metre. The other state of feeling which Schmidt 
says that this metre sometimes represents, is apparently 
just the opposite of enthusiasm — i. e., " uncertainty, waver- 
ing, and helplessness" We find an exact parallel to this 
conflicting use of the Greek paeonics in the employment of 
initial triple measure in such a poem as Hood's Bridge of 
Sighs ; e. g. : 

Touch her not scornfully, 
Think of her mournfully, 

Gently, and humanly. 
Not of the stains of her, 
All that remains of her 

Now is pure womanly. 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 73 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny, 

Rash and undutiful ; 
Past all dishonor, 
Death has left on her 

Only the beautiful. 

And in Browning's Evelyn Hope ; e. g. : 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead. 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, — this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium flower 
Beginning to die too in the glass. 

The pathetic effect here may be owing to the blending 
of the spirit of assurance, — as if a man would say : " I know 
all about it; I am making no mistake," — with the sad 
nature of the facts represented ; or, possibly, the pathos 
may be owing to the uncertain effect of the metre, when 
read, as it would be in such a poem, without strongly 
marked accents. In this case, the immediate proximity 
of two syllables like not and scorn and her and mourn, 
both of them apparently accented, yet not both able to 
receive a strong accent, would of themselves suggest un- 
certainty, and make this kind of metre analogous to the 
trembling tone produced by the elocutionist's Tremulous 
stress. This is a form of stress, too, which, like the 
Greek paeonics, may be used both for great grief and for 
great joy — for any thing, in fact, showing that a man has 
not complete mastery over himself. Hence the appropri- 
ateness of the metre in the following — 

Though like a wanderer, 

Daylight all gone, 
Darkness be over me, 

My rest a stone, 
Yet in my dreams I 'd be 



74 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Nearer, my God, to thee, 
Nearer to thee. 

— Hymn : S. F. Adams. 

and also in this verse of the same hymn, where the assured 
earnestness and persistency or, what is the same thing, 
the aspiration, is represented in effects that blend those of 
tremulous and thorough stress : 

Or if on joyful wing 

Cleaving the sky, 
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, 

Upward I fly, 
Still all my song shall be, 
Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee. 

— Idem. 

Not a little of the success of a hymn like this, or of any 
poem, depends on the happy choice — usually made, of 
course, unconsciously — of a metre for it. 

As was shown in the examples quoted under median 
measure, Terminal Triple Measure, is often used inter- 
changeably with median, which is thus more closely allied 
to it than to initial measure ; in fact, the terminal accent, 
in this measure, can be regarded as a strong form of 
median. In this regard, these terminal effects resemble 
those of what elocutionists term Thorough stress, which, 
though sometimes described as a combination of initial, 
median, and terminal stress, has in it much more of the 
latter two than of the former — i. e., it indicates both the 
subjective feeling of the median in view of that which is 
intrinsically eloquent, beautiful, and sublime, and also the 
objective persistency and push of the terminal, therefore 
rapture, triumph, veJicmcnce, etc. Here are examples of 
terminal accent in triple measures : 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. ?$ 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam ; 
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream ; 
'T is the star-spangled banner. Oh, long may il wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

— Star-Spangled Banner : Key, 

Now there 's peace on the shore, now there 's calm on the sea, 
Fill a glass to the heroes whose swords kept us free, 
Right descendants of Wallace, Montrose, and Dundee. 

— The Broad- Swords of Scotland : Lockhart. 

Over hill, over dale, 

Thorough bush, thorough brier, 
Over park, over pale, 

Thorough flood, thorough fire. 

— Midsummer Night' s Dream, ii., I : Shakespear. 

The Greek measure corresponding to this is the Ana- 
paest, from ava7zaiGQ, to strike back. This, as Schmidt 
says, is " the proper march measure," used " in the march 
songs (in particular those of the Spartans), of which frag- 
ments have been preserved. The chorus in tragedy also 
generally entered the orchestra (in the parodus) and left 
it (in the exodus) while reciting anapaests, the recitation 
in both cases being in a chanting tone." This use of the 
anapaest would correspond exactly with that appropriate 
for our terminal triple measure, as just interpreted. 

In order to prevent monotony, as well as too great 
rapidity of movement, all kinds of triple measure are 
usually combined with double measure, initial triple, for 
instance, with initial double, as in the following : 

Under my window, under my window, 
All in the midsummer weather. . 

— Under my Window : T. West wood. 

Work and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
Work thou shalt ride o'er Care's coming billow ; 
Lie not down 'neath Woe's weeping willow. 

— To Labor is to Pray : F. S. Osgood. 



j6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

This combination is that which is found in the classic 
hexameter ; e. g. : 

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak- 
leaves. — Evangeline : Longfellow. 

Terminal triple measure is usually joined with terminal 
double ; e. g. : 

With fingers weary and worn, 
With eyelids heavy and red. 

— Song of the Shirt : Hood. 

Let them sing who may of the battle fray, 
And the deeds that have long since passed. 

The Good Old Plough : Anon. 

And median triple measure is used sometimes with 
initial double ; e. g. : 

Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchurn and her towers, 
Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours : 
We 're landless, landless, landless, Grigalach. 
Landless, landless, landless. 

— Macgregor s Gathering : Scott. 

But it is used more frequently with terminal double 
measure ; e. g. : 

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
And whiten the green plains under ; 

And then again I dissolve it in rain ; 
And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

— The Cloud : Shelley. 

In some compositions all forms, both of double and 
triple measure, are combined, the only essential consid- 
eration in the mind of the poet being to arrange the 
accents so that, when read, they can be separated by like 
intervals ; e. g. : 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. J J 

Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, not land nor motion, 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Water, water everywhere, 
And all the boards did shrink ; 
Water, water everywhere, 
Nor any a drop to drink. 

****** 
I closed my eyes and kept them close, 
And the balls like pulses beat ; 
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky 
Lay like a load on my weary eye, 
And the dead were at my feet. 

— The Ancie7it Mariner ; Coleridge. 

Quadruple measure is made up of two feet of double 
measure, one of the accented syllables of which receives 
more stress than the other. Here, for instance, is the 
Ditrochaic measure of the Greeks, or what may be 
termed Diinitial Qiiadruple measure. In it there are two 
trochaic feet. 

Roses are in | blossom, and the | rills are filled with | water-cresses. 

— Anon. 

And here is the Greek Diiambic measure, in which there 
are two iambic feet. It may be called Diterminal Quad- 
ruple measure. 

The king has come | to marshal us | in all his ar | mor dressed, 

-Battle of Ivry : Macaulay. 

The first of these is evidently an example of initial 
accent, and the second of terminal accent, and each must 
indicate the same as in double measure, with the excep- 
tion that in quadruple measure the movement is more 
rapid, and represents, therefore, more buoyancy and mo- 
mentum in the thought. 



yS POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

If necessary, a distinction might be drawn between 
these two forms of Quadruple measure and those forms 
of it in which the primary accent belongs to the second 
of its two Double measures. The following, for instance, 
is usually considered to be an example of Initial Double 
measure. But it might be divided into feet like these, 
and termed Final Diinitial Quadruple measure, because the 
primary accent belongs to the final double foot constituting 
the Quadruple measure : 

We the fairies | blithe and antic, 
Of dimensions not gigantic ; 
Though the moonshine mostly keep us, 
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us. 

— Fairies' Song : Thomas Randolph. 

Trans, by Leigh Hunt. 

And this, for similar reasons, might be termed Final 
Diterminal Quadruple measure : 

Domestic bliss | has proved my bane 

A harder case you never heard, 
My wife (in other matters sane) 

Pretends that I 'm a Dicky-bird ! 

— Bains Carew : Gilbert. 

In such cases, however, it is better to attribute the 
greater prominence given to certain of the accented sylla- 
bles, not to the supposed fact that the lines containing 
them are composed in Quadruple measure, instead of — as 
seems to be the case — in Double measure ; but to the 
effects, considered in Chapter Fourth, of short quantity 
which increases the rapidity of the movement, and of the 
pauses in the middle and at the end of each line which 
increase the emphasis of the accented syllables imme- 
diately preceding them. If we call the measures that we 
have just examined Quadruple, what is to prevent our 
supposing that verses, written in triple measure like the 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 79 

following, contain feet composed of four, or even six, 
syllables ? 

Guvener B. | is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home | an' looks arter his folks. 

— The Biglow Papers : Lowell. 

We have seen now that all the different kinds of elocu 
tionary stress have correspondences in poetic measures. 
It remains to be said that, just as different kinds of stress 
can be used in reading different parts of the same sen- 
tence, so different kinds of measures may be used in the 
same verse, either for the sake of variety, or to give 
peculiar emphasis to some word or syllable thus thrust 
into unusual and unexpected importance. 

Here terminal accent is used for initial, at the begin- 
ning of a line : 

Hears amid the chime and singing 
The bells of his own village ringing. 

— Carillon : Longfellow. 

And here at the end of a line : 

Silence on the town descended, 
Silence, silence everywhere. 

— Idem. 

Here initial accent is used for terminal, at the begin- 
ning of a line, and also at its end : 

Blaze with your serried columns, 
I will not bend the knee. 

— The Seminole's Defiance : G. W. Patten. 

And here at its end : 

O sacred head now wounded, 
With grief and shame weighed down. 
— Hymn : Bernard through Gerhardt tr. by J. W. Alexander. 



80 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

In the following, with the variety that is common in 
triple measure, we have initial accent in Sunbeam ; ter- 
minal, in From cape ; median, in The mountains; initial 
triple, in Over a ; and terminal tripple, in with a bridge, 
etc. 

From cape to cape with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof, 

The mountains its columns be. 

— The Cloud : Shelley. 

Corresponding to the methods of dramatic elocution, 
changes in measure are often made in order to represent 
the movements of certain objects described. Notice, in 
the following terminal double measures, how the placing 
of the accent on the first syllable of many of the feet, 
serves, by changing them into initial triple measures, to 
convey the impression of rapidity : 

Each creek and bay 
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 
Of fish that with their fins and shining scales 
Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft 
Bank the mid sea ; part single or with mate, 
Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves 
Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance 
Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold. 

— Paradise Lost, 7 : Milton. 

Notice here, too, the words italicized : 

Far along 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
Leaps the live thunder. Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 

— Childe Harold : Byron. 

And the representation of the movement of the leaf, 
when the poet comes to speak of it, in the following : 



MEANINGS OF THE METRES. g 

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 

There is not wind enough in the air 

To move away the ringlet curl 

From the lovely lady's cheek, — 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 

That dances as often as dance it can, 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

— Christabel : Coleridge, 



CHAPTER VII. 

ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC REGULARITY OF FORCE. 

Regularity of Force, combining its Instinctive with Reflective Tendencies, 
and representing Emotive Influence — Abrupt and Smooth Force, as 
used in Elocution — Irregular and Regular Accentuation corresponding 
to them in Poetry — Abruptness in Short and Long Lines — Imitative 
Effects, etc. 

'T^HIS subject of changes in metre introduces us, natu- 
rally, to the third way in which force on different 
words may differ — namely, in regularity. It may be abrupt 
or smooth, each respectively representing the amount of 
mere instinct or of reflection in the emotion accompanying 
the momentum. Abrupt force indicates interruption, excite- 
ment, vehemence, anger; smooth force continuity, satisfac- 
tion, gentleness, deligJit. The poetic equivalent for the first 
seems to be found in lines in which there is a break in the 
regularity of the rhythm, either because two accented syl- 
lables are brought together, or a larger number of unac- 
cented ones than the rhythm warrants. For instance, we 
must all perceive the abrupt effects produced by the first 
syllables of Battering, and belching, and by the word Far 
in the following, coming, respectively, as they do, imme- 
diately after the accented words, sob, wide, and flame : 

I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 

Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob, 

Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. 

— St. Simeon Stylites : Tennyson. 
82 



REGULARITY OF FORCE. 83 

The gates that now 
Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame 
Far into chaos. — Paradise Lost, 10: Milton. 

Notice, too, the abrupt effects occasioned by the three 
unaccented syllables Are tlie in-, and the two With im-, in 
the following : 

I '11 cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 

Are the mdentures drawn ? shall we be gone ? 

— I Henry IV., iii., 1 : Shake spear. 

On a sudden open fly, 
With zV/zpetuous recoil and jarring sound 
Th' infernal doors. 

— Paradise Lost, 2 : Milton. 

Abruptness is sometimes characteristic of the entire 
metre of a poem. In these cases, it is usually produced 
in connection with the pauses between the lines. At times 
it results from ending one line with an accented syllable, 
and beginning the next with another, as in these : 

Every day brings a ship, 
Every ship brings a word ; 
Well for those who have no fear, 
Looking seaward well assured 
That the word the vessel brings 
Is the word they wish to hear. 

— Letters : Emerson. 

Here let us sport, 
Boys, as we sit. 
Laughter and wit 
Flashing so free. 
Life is but short ; 
When we are gone, 
Let them sing on 
Round the old tree. 

— The Mahogany Tree : Thackeray. 



84 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Forward the light brigade ! 
Was there a man dismayed ? 
Not though the soldiers knew 

Some one had blundered ; 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die. 
Into the valley of death 

Rode the six hundred, 

— Charge of the Light Brigade : Tennyson, 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
Followed by the brave of other lands. 
He on whom from both her open hands 
Lavish honor showered all her stars. 

— Ode to the Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

Under his slouched hat, left and right 
He glanced : the old flag met his sight. 

" Halt ! " — the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
" Fire ! " — out blazed the rifle blast. 

— Barbara Frietchie : Whittier. 

At times, this abrupt effect is produced by ending a 
line with an unaccented syllable and beginning the next 
with another one, e. g. : 

As she lay on her death-bed, 

The bones of her thin face, boys, 

As she lay on her death-bed, 
I don't know how it be, boys, 

When all 's done and said ; 

But I see her looking at me, boys, 

Wherever I turn my head. 

— Tommy 's Dead : Dobell. 

The fountains mingle with the river, 
And the rivers with the ocean ; 



REGULARITY OF FORCE. 85 

The winds of heaven mix forever 
With a sweet emotion. 

— Loves Philosophy : Shelley. 

With deep affection 
And recollection 
I often think of 

Those Shandon bells ; 
Whose sound so wild would, 
In the days of childhood, 
Fling round my cradle 

Their magic spells. 

— The Bells of Shandon : F. Mahony. 

They lock them up and veil and guard them daily ; 

They scarcely can behold their male relations ; 
So that their moments do not pass so gaily 

As is supposed the case with northern nations. 

— Beppo : Byron. 

As characteristic abruptness in verse is produced in 
connection with the pauses at the ends of the lines, the 
shorter the lines are, the more frequent are the instances 
of abrupt force, and the more do the verses seem to mani- 
fest the sort of nervous energy which this represents. 
Compare the quotations above in which the lines are long 
with those in which they are short ; or compare the two 
following stanzas : 

Where corpse-light 

Dances bright, 

Be it by day or night, 

Be it by light or dark, 

There shall corpse lie stiff and stark. 

— Halcro's Verses in The Pirate : Scott. 

Not in vain the distance beacons, Forward, forward let us range, 
Let the old world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 

-Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 

This latter couplet has almost the effect of perfect reg- 
ularity of rhythm, which, as has been said, characterizes 



86 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

metre corresponding to smooth force, representing there- 
fore continuity, satisfaction, gentleness, delight, such, for 
instance, as one would naturally have in the tender, lovely, 
beautiful, grand, or sublime. In all the following quota- 
tions it will be noticed that the final syllable of each line 
joins without a break the rhythm of the following line. 
They all furnish illustrations of the poetic equivalent for 
smooth force. 

From gold to gray 

Our mild sweet day 

Of Indian summer fades too soon ; 

But tenderly 

Above the sea 

Hangs white and clear the hunter's moon. 

— Eve of Election : Whittier. 

When gathering clouds around I view, 
And days are dark and friends are few, 
On Him I lean who not in vain 
Experienced every human pain. 

— Hymn : Grant. 

Till their chimes in sweet collision 
Mingled with each wandering vision, 
Mingled with the fortune-telling 
Gypsy bands of dreams and fancies, 
Which, amid the waste expanses 
Of the silent land of trances, 
Have their solitary dwelling. 

— Carillon : Longfellow. 

My eyes, how I love you, 
You sweet little dove you, 
There 's no one above you, 
Most beautiful Kitty. 

— Kitty : Anon. 

At Paris it was, at the opera there, 

And she looked like a queen in a book that night, 

With a wreath of pearl in her raven hair, 
And the brooch on her breast so bright. 

— Aux Italiens : Lytton. 



REGULARITY OF FORCE. 8/ 

Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered, 
And the sentinal stars set their watch in the sky, 

And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, 
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die. 

— The Soldier s Dream : Campbell. 

Here is the same in our regular English blank verse: 

So all day long the noise of battle rolled 
Among the mountains by the winter sea, 
Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 
Had fallen in Lionesse about their lord. 

— The Idyls of the King : Tennyson. 

Abrupt and smooth poetic effects, corresponding to 
those of dramatic elocution, have been noticed often, and 
scarcely need mention here. The following are abrupt : 

The pilgrim oft 
At dead of night 'mid his oraison hears 
Aghast the voice of time-disparted towers, 
Tumbeling all precipitate down — dash'd 
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. 

— The Ruins of Rome : Dyer. 

Then broke the whole night in one blow, 
Thundering ; then all hell with one throe 
Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke 
Death, and all dead things moved and woke. 

— Epilogue : Swinburne. 

On a sudden open fly, 
With impetuous recoil and jarring sounds, 
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
Harsh thunder. 

— Paradise Lost, 2 : Milton. 

And these are smooth : 

Heaven open'd wide 

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, 

On golden hinges moving. 

— Idem, 7. 



88 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Follow'd with acclamation, and the sound 
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tuned 
Angelic harmonies ; the earth, the air 
Resounded. 

— Idem, 7. 

Collecting, projecting, 
Receding and speeding, 
And shocking and rocking, 
And darting and parting. 

****** 
Dividing and gliding and sliding. 
And falling and brawling and sprawling, 
And diving and riving and striving, 
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling. 

****** 

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, 
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying. 

And so never ending, but always descending, 
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, 
All at once, and all o'er with a mighty uproar, 
And this way the water comes down at Lodore. 

The Cataract of Lodore : Southey. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC PITCH — TUNES OF VERSE. 

Elements entering into the Tunes of Verse : Pitch and Quality — Pitch repre- 
senting Reflective Tendency or Intellectual Motive — On its Instinctive 
Side by High and Low Key — What each represents — On its Reflective, 
by Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements — What each represents 
— When Influences from both Sides express Emotive Tendencies, by 
Melody — What Different Melodies represent — Pitch as used in Poetry — 
Which was formerly chanted — And has Tunes at Present — Shades of 
Pitch in Speech as Numerous as, and more Delicate than, in Song — 
Scientific Proof that Short Vowels are sounded on a High Key, and 
Long on a Low Key — Light, Gay, Lively Ideas represented by the 
Former ; Serious, Grave, Dignified by the Latter. 

"\yl 7"E are to take up, now, the elements of elocutionary 
expression which enter into the effects of what 
are termed the tunes of verse. The first of these is pitch. 

This word means the same in elocution as in music, and 
indicates that the consecutive sounds of speech are related 
to each other in a way analogous to that in which, in 
singing, they move up and down the musical scale. A 
whole passage may be delivered on what is termed a high 
pitch or key, as when one is shouting to a person at a 
distance ; or it may be delivered on a low one, as when 
one is groaning. Besides this, in uttering a whole pass- 
age, or a single syllable with what is termed an inflec- 
tion, it is possible for the voice to rise, as is said, from 
a low to a high pitch, or to fall from a high to a low 
one. 

8 9 



90 POETRY ASA REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

It is important to notice, also, that, in giving different 
degrees of pitch, it is not essential to manifest much 
either of physical energy or of those instinctive modes 
of psychical emotive expression most allied to it. A 
hand-organ, in which every note is sounded with the 
same force and quality, can nevertheless illustrate degrees 
of pitch so far as concerns this alone. But though 
neither physical energy nor psychical emotion is repre- 
sented by pitch, we find that every man, in talking, directs 
his voice first to one key and then to another ; and that, 
by so doing, he represents to us the general tenor of his 
reflections. Intelligence of these, therefore, is communi- 
cated by pitch ; and, usually, too, very definite intelligence 
of them. What a man wishes to have his tones commu- 
municate, we can often infer by overhearing them, even 
under circumstances rendering it impossible for us to 
distinguish clearly his words. Often, indeed, his words 
may mean one thing, and his intonations another, as when 
a teacher tells the parents of a boy in his school that their 
son is " doing very well," at the same time using a very 
decided rising inflection on the word " well." 

It seems proper to say, therefore, that, in the main, pitch 
is that part of the generally emotive language of the in- 
tonations which is most reflective, representing, not as 
words do, single conceptions, but connected and con- 
secutive ones, as phrases and sentences do. In other 
words, pitch represents the mental movements, or that 
which underlies these — the mental motives or aims. 
These motives, affected on their physical side according 
to the degree either of mere instinctive or of reflective 
influence in operation in them, tend to lift the tones and 
keep them on a high level of pitch, or on a high key, as is 
said ; or to lower them and keep them down. In their 



ELOCUTIONARY INFLECTIONS. 9 1 

strictly reflective or intellectual phases, the motives cause 
the pitch to " rise " or " fall " in accordance with the ten- 
dency or direction of the ideas,- — and this mainly in the 
inflections. The balance maintained between the in- 
stinctive and the reflective tendencies — that is, between 
the different kinds of keys and of the " rising " and " fall- 
ing " movements, determines the melody, and represents, 
of course, the tendency in one or the other direction of 
the psychic nature. 

Considering pitch, first, as influenced by the instinctive 
nature, it has been noticed that when a man is light- 
hearted, carrying the least amount of thought, either in 
quantity or quality, — in other words, when there is noth- 
ing to weigh him down, and that which is moving him 
is light, gay, and lively in its character, he uses high pitch, 
as in uttering this : 

O, then I see Queen Mab has been with you. 

— Romeo and Juliet, i., 4 : Shakespear. 

But if, on the contrary, his reflective nature is in opera- 
tion to such an extent and with such subjects that he 
does feel weighed down, as is the case when that which is 
moving him is serious, grave, and dignified in its character, 
calling for more or less expression of soul from him, he 
uses low pitch, and keeps his voice on it, as in this : 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll. 

— Childe Harold : Byron. 

It is hardly necessary to add that, as related to these 
two extremes, words conveying intelligence of merely 
ordinary matters, would be uttered at a medium pitch, 
somewhere between the two. It is equally evident that 
in dramatic elocution a high key imitates sounds that are 
high, as in the cry, " Yell ! yell ! why don't you ! " ; and a 



92 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

low key imitates sounds that are low, as in saying, " Who 's 
there ? he growled." 

In discoursive elocution, again, the rising and falling 
movements of the voice, whether used in continuous 
passages or in the inflections given to single words, repre- 
sent, as has been said, the direction or tendency of the 
current of ideas in the mind of the speaker. To extend 
and explain this, they represent the flowing or checking of 
his motives as influenced by the instinctive or reflective 
operations of his mind. The rising movement opens, 
and, if an inflection, emphatically opens, the channel of 
thought, as if to speed its current forward. Those listen- 
ing to it feel, therefore, that the speaker has not yet 
arrived at a word, or completed an idea, upon which he 
wishes them very particularly to reflect. This movement 
produces, therefore, an anticipative or indecisive effect, 
and indicates what, as compared with the falling move- 
ment, is sidiordinate, negative, or questio?iable. The down- 
ward movement closes, and, if an inflection, emphatically 
checks, the current of thought, points out to the audience 
that which has been said, leads them to reflect upon it, 
and so produces a conclusive, decisive effect, and indicates 
what is comparatively important, positive, or affirmative. 
Besides this, there is often, on the same passage or syl- 
lable, a movement both upward and downward, or what, 
if on a single word, is termed a circumflex inflection. 
This, of course, imparts something of the effects of both 
the rising and falling movements, though often, especially 
in the inflections, in accordance with the principle of con- 
trast, it is chiefly employed to give increased effect to the 
rising or falling movement of the voice with which the cir- 
cumflex ends, the end of this inflection being that which 
indicates its main significance. 



ELOCUTIONARY INFLECTIONS, 93 

To recognize the accuracy of these explanations of the 
meanings of the inflections, we have only to notice how 
the significance of the following sentences is changed upon 
our uttering them with a rising (') or falling ( v ) or with a 
circumflex inflection, ending with a rising ( u )or a falling 
(A)movement. 

If so I will go. If so I will go. 

It must be so. It must be so. 

It depends. It depends. 

John declaims well. John declaims well. 

Of course it is. Of course it Is. 

You are not to do that. You are not to do that. 

Is n't she beautiful ? Is n't she beautiful? 

You — you meant no harm. You — you meant no harm. 

Sidney Lanier, in his " Science of English Verse," has 
directed attention, as had been done before, to the way 
in which this truth, with reference to the different mean- 
ings that may be conveyed by the simple movements of 
the voice, wholly aside from the words used, is brought 
out by Shakespear in his All 's Well that Ends Well, 
where he makes the clown declare : 

I have an answer will serve all men. 

Countess. — Marry ; that 's a bountiful answer, that fits all questions. 

Clown. — From below your duke to beneath your constable ; it will fit any 
question. 

Countess. — It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all 
demands. 

Clown. — But a trifle, neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak 
truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to 't . . . Ask me if I am 
a courtier. . . . 

Count. — I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ? 

Clown. — O Lord, sir, — there 's a simple putting off, — more, more, a hun- 
dred of them. 

Count. — Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. 

Clown. — O Lord, sir, — thick, thick, spare not me. 



94 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Count. — I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. 
Clown. — O Lord, sir, — nay, put me to 't, I warrant you. 
Count. — You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. 
Clown. — O Lord, sir, — spare not me. 

******* 
Count. — I play the noble housewife with the time 

To entertain it so merrily with a Fool. 
Clown. — O Lord, sir, — why there 't serves well again. 

—All's Well that Ends Well, ii., 2. 

In dramatic elocution, rising, falling, or circumflex 
movements of the voice, simply imitate things with 
which movements or sounds of these kinds are in some 
way associated. The following, for instance, require 
movements of the voice in both directions : 

He saw a crowd assembled round 
A person dancing on the ground, 
Who straight began to leap and bound 

With all his might and main. 
To see that dancing man he stopped, 
Who twirled and wriggled, skipped and hopped, 
Then down incontinently dropped. 

And then sprang up again. 

— The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo : Gilbert. 

But the babe with a dig that would startle an ox, 

With his " C'ck ! Oh, my !— 

Go along wiz 'oo, fie ! " 
Would exclain : " I 'm affaid 'oo a shocking ole fox." 

Now a father it shocks, 

And it whitens his locks, 
When his little babe calls him a shocking old fox. 

— Precocious Baby : Gilbert. 

As has been said, the blending of the effects of high 
and low key with those of the rising and falling of phrases 
and syllables, leads to what is termed melody, the general 
character of which represents the mental motive as influ- 



TUNES OF VERSE. 95 

enced by the soul, or the higher emotive nature. If the 
key be greatly varied, therefore, it represents a minimum 
of self-control or poise ; if slightly varied or monotonous, a 
maximum of this, — statements which will be sufficiently 
illustrated while we go on to apply, as we shall now do, 
all these elocutionary principles of pitch to the subject 
immediately before us. 

Probably few have noticed to what an extent pitch en- 
ters as a factor into the effects of poetry. They know in a 
general way, of course, that in early modes of communi- 
cating thought, intonations, like gestures, were almost as 
significant as words ; but they do not realize that the 
same is true in our own day, least of all that changes 
in pitch are and always must be elements entering into 
the significance of the effects produced by poetic rhythm. 
They know, again, if at all acquainted with the history of 
the art, that there was a time when poetry was associated 
with both dancing and music. It was so, as we are told, 
in the time of King David, who, on one occasion, at least, 
danced as well as sang his psalms before the ark. In 
Greece, not only lyric but dramatic poetry was chanted, 
and often accompanied by the lyre. As late as the six- 
teenth century, declamation accompanied by music, 
flourished in England and in Italy. In the latter country 
it then passed into the opera, which did not follow, as 
some suppose, but preceded all that is noteworthy in the 
development of the pure music, unaccompanied by words, 
of modern times. In our own day, however, when poetry is 
merely read, the movements of the waltz, the polka, the 
sonata, the symphony, seem to belong to an art so differ- 
ent, that it is difficult to conceive that it was once ap- 
propriate to speak of ballad poetry, because the Italian 
ballare meant to dance, or of a sonnet, because the lute 



g6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

was sounded while poetry was being chanted. The truth 
is, however, that even to-day, also, poetry and music are 
allied. As has been said already, the chanting of verse 
was not originally the cause of its tunes, but the result of 
them, springing from an endeavor to develop artistically 
the tunes natural to speech. These tunes our poetry, 
notwithstanding its present separation from music, still 
retains. They differ from those of music, yet are analo- 
gous to them. Let us consider the more important of 
the resemblances and differences between the two. 

As most of us know, science has ascertained that all 
musical sounds result from regularly recurring vibrations 
caused by cords, pipes, reeds, or other agencies. About 
thirty-three of these vibrations per second produce the low- 
est tone used in music, and about three thousand nine 
hundred and sixty, the highest. That the number of vibra- 
tions in any note may be increased and its pitch made 
higher, it is necessary to lessen the length or size of the 
cord, or of whatever causes the vibrations. When the 
vibrating cord is lessened by just one half, the tone pro- 
duced is separated from its former tone by an interval of 
sound which in music is termed an octave. Between the 
two extremes of pitch forming the octave, eleven half 
tones, as they are called, caused by sounds resulting from 
different lengths of the cord, between its whole length 
and its half length, have been selected, for reasons to be 
given in another place, and arranged in what is termed a 
musical scale. These eleven tones, seven tones constitut- 
ing the do, re, me, fa, sol, la, and si of the gamut, are all 
that can be used in music between the two notes forming 
the octave. There are about seven octaves, or, what is 
the same thing, seven scales, each containing twelve 
sounds of different pitch, — in all, about eighty-four de- 



TUNES OF VERSE. 97 

grees of pitch that are used in music. In the speaking 
voice only about two octaves are used, so that in this re- 
gard its range is more narrow than that of music. Be- 
tween any two octave notes, however, the speaking voice 
can use whatever sounds it chooses ; it is not confined to 
the twelve that constitute the musical scale. For instance, 
the note of the bass voice called by musicians C, is sounded 
by producing one hundred and thirty-two vibrations a sec- 
ond, and C of the octave above by producing two hundred 
and sixty-four vibrations. Between the two, therefore, it 
is possible to conceive of forming one hundred and thirty- 
one distinct tones, each vibrating once a second oftener 
than the sound below it. It is possible, too, to conceive 
that the speaking voice can use any of these tones. 
Music, however, between the same octave notes, can use 
but eleven tones. Therefore, the different degrees of pitch 
used in speech, though not extending over as many oc- 
taves, are much more numerous than those used in music. 
For this reason, the melodies of speech cannot be repre- 
sented by any system through which we now write music. 
There are not enough notes used in music to render it 
possible to make the representation accurate. Nor prob- 
ably would much practical benefit be derived from an at- 
tempt to construct a system of speech-notation ; though 
it, like other things, may be among the possibilities of 
acoustic development in the future. 

In applying to poetic form the principles determining 
pitch in elocution, let us take up first those in accordance 
with which certain syllables are uttered on a high or low 
key. It has often been noticed that the short and closed 
vowel-sounds have a high, thin effect, and the closed and 
long vowel-sounds a low and full effect. There is the best 
of reasons why this should be so. It lies in the fact that 



98 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

the pronunciation of every closed or open vowel-sound 
naturally tends to the production of a high or low musical 
note. Donders first made the discovery that the cavity 
of the mouth, when whispering each of the different vow- 
els, is tuned to a different pitch. This fact gives the 
vowel its peculiar quality. Instruments, moreover, have 
been constructed, by means of which most sounds can be 
analyzed, and their component tones distinctly and defi- 
nitely noted ; and now the theory is accepted that the 
voice, when pronouncing vowel-sounds, at whatever key in 
the musical scale it may start them, has a tendency to 
suggest — if not through its main, or what is termed its 
prime tone, at least through associated, or what are termed 
its partial tones — that pitch which is peculiar to the vowel 
uttered. 

Exactly what this pitch is, in the case of each vowel, it 
is not important for us to know here. In fact, it has not 
yet been definitely determined. Helmholtz, in his " Sen- 
sations of Tone," says, for instance, that the series, which 
may be represented in English by a in father, a in man, e 
in there, and i in machine, forms an ascending minor chord 
of G n — thus: d"'—o'"—b'"flat—d""; and the following 
represents the results of Merkel's experiments with the 
German vowels given in his " Physiologie der Menschli- 
chen Sprache " : 



-j&kr^m — r- 


* 


=^= 


:5&=3-iT;— ^=N 




i 




ir^% '- r r ■ J 



Oa A 



But what concerns us, at present, is merely the fact that 
there is a pitch peculiar to the sound of each letter, and that 
the pitch of the short and closed vowel-sounds is actually, 



TUNES OF VERSE. 99 

and not ideally, higher in tone than that of the long and 
open vowel-sounds. 

With this understanding of the actual connection exist- 
ing between the sounds represented by certain letters and 
pitch, it follows, as a matter of natural law, that elocution- 
ary high pitch — to begin with this — should find its poetic 
analogue in a predominating use of short and closed 
vowel-sounds, especially when connected with consonant- 
sounds that cannot- be prolonged, and therefore cannot in- 
troduce into the tone other strong elements of pitch. Poetic 
passages, therefore, composed of vowels and consonants 
of this character are suited, like elocutionary high pitch, 
to represent light, gay, and lively effects, — a fact which, as 
will be noticed, sustains and puts upon a scientific basis all 
that has been said with reference to the unimportant, or — 
what is the same thing — the light, gay, and lively charac- 
ter of the ideas represented by the same combinations of 
sounds in short quantity. With these explanations, the 
reader will understand in what sense the following illus- 
trate high pitch as used in poetry : 

He took a life preserver, and he hit him on the head, 
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed. 

— Gentle Alice Brown : Gilbert. 

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful Jollity, 
Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, 
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled Care derides 
And Laughter holding both his sides. 

— V Allegro : Milton. 

The same short and closed vowels and unprolonged 



IOO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

consonant-sounds are used also to imitate sounds that 
are high ; e. g. : 

Then rose the cry of females shrill 
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill, 
Denouncing misery and ill, 
Mingled with childhood's babbling trill 
Of curses stammered slow. 



A sharp and shrieking echo gave, 
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave, 
And the gray pass where birches wave 
On Beala-nam-bo. 

— Lady of the Lake : Scott. 

What news ? what news ? come tell to me 
What news ? what news ? thou little Foot-page ? 
I 've been whacking the foe till it seems an age 
Since I was in Ingoldsby Hall so free. 

— Ingoldsby Penance : Ingoldsby Legends. 

Bird of the wilderness, 

Blithesome and cumberless, 
Sweet is thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 

Emblem of happiness 

Blest be thy dwelling-place ! 
O to abide in the desert with thee ! 

— The Skylark : Hogg. 

O hark ! what mean those yells and cries ? 

His chain some furious madman breaks. 
He comes ! — I see his glaring eyes ! 

Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes. 
Help ! help ! — He 's gone — O fearful woe. 

Such screams to hear, such sights to see ! 
My brain, my brain — I know, I know 

I am not mad — but soon shall be. 

— The Maniac : M. G. Lewis. 

Long and open vowel-sounds, on the contrary, espe- 
cially when combined with consonant-sounds that can 



TUNES OF VERSE. IOI 

easily be prolonged, produce the serious, grave and digni- 
fied effects of low pitch, as in the following: 

Insulted, chained, and all the world our foe, 
Our God alone is all we boast below. 

— The Captivity : Goldsmith. 

Then dying of a mortal stroke, 
What time the foeman's line is broke, 
And all the war is rolled in smoke. 

— Two Voices: Tennyson. 

Or as in these imitative effects : 

Thus long ago, 
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
While organs yet were mute, 
Timotheous to his breathing flute 

And sounding lyre 
Could swell the soul to rage or kindle soft desire. 

— Alexander 's Feast : Dryden. 

There comes across the waves' tumultuous roar 
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore. 

— Pleasures of Hope : Campbell. 

Notice how Swinburne, with his exquisite sense of the 
meanings of sounds, passes from low pitch to high pitch, 
or the reverse, in order to bring out the changes in senti- 
ment in the following: 

Old glory of warrior ghosts 

Shed fresh on filial hosts, 

With dewfall redder than the dews of day. 

— Birthday Ode. 

Being bird and God in one. 

— On the Cliffs. 

Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred 
With wind of mounting music blown more high 
Than wildest wing may fly. 

— On the Cliffs. 



102 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

With songs and cries 
That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies, 
A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began 
From all ways round to move in on the man, 
Clamorous against him silent ; and their feet 
Were as the winds are fleet, 
And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet. 

— Thalassius. 



CHAPTER IX. 

POETIC PITCH — RISING AND FALLING TONES. 

Correspondence between Elocutionary Inflections or Intonations and 
certain Arrangements of Verse-Harmony produced by Sounds of Vow- 
els and Consonants combined — Effects of Rising Movements produced 
by Lines beginning without Accents and ending with them — Of falling 
Movements, by Lines beginning with Accents and ending without them 
— Of Circumflex Movements, by Combinations of both Arrangements — 
What the Marks of Accent indicated to the Greeks, and how they read 
them in their Poetry — Illustrations of Ideas represented by Verse 
arranged to give Effects of Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements 
— Movements of Verse in Narration and Pathos. 

r FHE poetic effects, corresponding to the rising and 
falling of the voice, especially as used in the inflec- 
tions, will now be examined. There is a sense in which 
these movements of the voice enter into the pronunciation 
of every syllable containing more than one letter-sound. 
In uttering, for example, the word an, the sound of the a 
is at a different pitch from that of the n. In talking 
rapidly, however, the two sounds seem usually uttered, not 
in succession but simultaneously. Their effects, therefore, 
when combined, are analogous, not to those of musical 
melody, but of harmony, and of these much more closely 
than at first might be supposed. In flexible, well-trained 
voices, belonging to those familiar with the relations of 
musical tones, there is a tendency to sound the two at 
such intervals of pitch from each other as to form a true 
musical chord. One reason why vocal culture increases 

103 



104 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

the sweetness and resonance of the speaking voice is 
because it enables one to sound distinctly all the elements 
of tone needed, in order to produce this speech-harmony. 
The rising and falling of the voice with which we have 
to deal now, however, are not those subtile ones allying 
speech to harmony, but those more obvious ones which 
give it a very apparent melody. The effects in poetry 
corresponding to elocutionary inflections, are produced 
by the same arrangements of the syllables in the line that 
we have already noticed when considering metre. In our 
language, as a rule, — a rule which the elocutionist, of 
course, can violate in order to produce what for him are 
the more important effects of delivery, — an accented sylla- 
ble is sounded on a key higher than an unaccented one. 
To illustrate this, in the ordinary pronunciation of conjure, 
meaning to practise magical arts, the con is sounded higher 
than the jure ; but in conjure meaning to summon sol- 
emnly, the con is sounded lower. Therefore, if a line of 
poetry ends with an accented syllable, or has what is 
termed a masculine ending, the voice in pausing on this, 
as it generally does at the end of a line, will pause, as a 
rule, on a key higher than that on which it has uttered the 
preceding syllable ; e. g. : 

I sift the snow- 
On the mountains below, 
And their great pines groan aghast. 

— The Cloud : Shelley. 

Or again, if a line begins with an unaccented syllable, the 
voice will pass upward from this to the accented syllable ; 
and this movement, begun with the line, will continue to 
its end, especially if there be an accented syllable there. 
The effect produced, therefore, in both cases, is that of a 
constant repetition of the rising inflection ; e. g. : 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. 105 

The triumphal arch 

Through which I march 
With hurricane, fire, and snow, 

"When the powers of the air 

Are chained to my chair, 
Is the million colored bow. — Idem. 

For similar reasons, if a line closes with an unaccented syl- 
lable, having what is termed a. feminine ending; or begins 
with an accented syllable, the effect is that of a constant rep- 
etition of the falling inflection. In fact, the Greeks, though 
arriving at their result through a different process, actually 
termed lines ending thus catalectic or falling ; e. g. : 

Love he comes, and love he tarries, 
Just as fate or fancy carries, 
Longest stays when sorest chidden, 
Laughs and flies when pressed and bidden. 

— The First Kiss : Campbell. 

Perhaps the contrast between this movement and the 
former one can be made more apparent by quoting two ex- 
ceptional lines of the same poem used for illustration there : 

I am the daughter 
Of earth and water. 

— The Cloud : Shelley. 

Very few, without making a special effort to do so, 
could read these lines, giving rising inflections on the 
syllable tcr at the ends of them. Nor is it without sig- 
nificance that there is a natural tendency for musical com- 
posers, when preparing tunes for words, to arrange their 
melodies so that there is an emphatic rising of the voice 
where the final syllables either of the feet or of the lines, 
but especially of the latter, are accented, and a falling of 
it, where they are unaccented. Notice the following, and 
also the musical illustrations, especially the hymn termed 
Bayley, in the next chapter, — all of which were selected in 
a very few moments from an ordinary hymn-book. 



io6 



POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



Like Effects of Pitch Shown in the Melody both of the Music and Verse. 
Lines with Falling or Feminine Endings. With Rising or Masculine Endings, 
ZION. 



SEg±gESEgE*E£ 



m 



Zi - on stands with hills surrounded, 
All her foes shall be con-found-ed, 



Zi - on, 
Though the 


kept with power 
world in arms 

s s J 


di - 

com - 


vine; ) 
bine ; J 


-hS-=— S— - 


_p • . * — g?. 


^ - 


HI— ^R 


— i ^ — 


1- Us— J— 


-U— 


^ :H 






1 






:^: 



^ 



=*C 



is; 



Hap - py 
- I i— 



z; 
4a. 



P^« 



What 



fav - ored lot 



m =m=& 






thine. 

—<s> — 



It was said, a little time ago, that the circumflex inflec- 
tions, in accordance with the principle of contrast, make 
stronger the rising or falling movements with which they 
end. In like manner, certain arrangements of syllables 
augment the rising or falling poetic movements which we 
are now considering. If, for instance, series of lines both 
end and begin with accented syllables, the impression con- 
veyed by the rising movement at the end of a line is 
increased, because it is immediately repeated at the begin- 
ing of the next line ; and the voice, before repeating it, 
must necessarily pause for a little, thus directing addi- 
tional attention to it ; c. g. : 

On a hill there grows a flower, 

Fair befall the dainty sweet, 
By that flower there is a bower, 

Where the heavenly muses meet. 

— Phil lis the Pair : A T . Pre Ion. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. \OJ 

For a similar reason, if lines both end and begin with 
unaccented syllables, the effect of the falling movement is 
increased ; e. g. : 

mistress mine, where are you roaming ? 
O stay, and hear ; your true love 's coming. 

— Twelfth Night, ii., 3 : Shakespear. 

It is interesting to notice that this incidental use of the 
spoken accent in our language in order to represent pitch, 
is just that which the best authorities, both ancient and 
modern, agree in acknowledging to have been the main 
use of the written accent in the classic languages. The 
Avord accent comes from the Latin accentus, from ad and 
canere meaning to sing to, and the Greek word for the 
same 7tpo6opdia comes from npoS and cpdrj, and means a 
marker singing, or for tones of voice, and not merely for 
stress or the ictus. All the Greek terms used for specific 
accents, too, were borrowed from those used in music. 
The acute accent was called d£,lia, meaning sharp or high, 
the grave fiapeia, meaning heavy or low, and the circum- 
flex 7tepiG7toDjj.ivrj, from nEpianaoD meaning to draw 
around. This circumflex, by-the-way, was almost always 
used upon syllables that had been contracted, and this for 
the simple purpose, as will become evident upon reflec- 
tion, of representing in a single syllable movements of the 
voice that before had been represented in two : ri-jua-Go, 
for instance, when contracted, would become ri-piGo. 



z* — :■+ 



It will be seen from this that the accents, as used by 
the Greeks, indicated not stress of voice, but tones not 
wholly dissimilar from those indicated by precisely the 



108 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

same marks when used to-day in our works on elocution. 
Dr. Schmidt, in the " Rythmic and Metric of the Classic 
Languages," says : " It is easy to see that a Greek verse 
can and must be pronounced throughout with the prose 
accents, and that this can be done without any conflict 
arising between the prose accents and the quantity of 
syllables and their ictus in poetry. The following verse, 
therefore, may be read : 






Av -dqa uol %v - vs - rts, Mov-oa, no - Xv-tno-nov, dk /xd-Xa noX - Xh. 

" Here, as it happens, the high tone and the ictus coin- 
cide in the first measures, but not in the fifth and sixth. 
But in English, as before remarked, the high tone is 
almost always joined to the ictus. . . . The following 
verse is accented in reading as follows : 



i 



" Hail to the chief who in tri - umph ad - van - ces. 

In this way there arises a regularity in the succession of 
the high and low tones which very closely resembles sing- 
ing." As Schmidt says truly, in modern verse, because it 
is read, not chanted, the ictus and the high tone are con- 
nected more invariably than in the ancient verse. For 
this reason the ictus or stress, when given at the beginning 
or end of the line, must indicate very nearly the same 
thing as the high tone when used at these places. 
What the former indicates was shown when treating of 
stress and the measures. What the latter indicates is to 
be shown now. Those who choose to compare the two 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. IO9 

results will find that, practically, they agree, and so, while 
considering accent as related to pitch, will derive a con- 
firmation of the truth of the principles unfolded when 
considering it as related to force. 

Let us take up, then, the different kinds of accent al- 
ready mentioned as necessitating the rising and falling 
movements of the voice. The accent accompanying 
terminal measure, in which the high tone ends but does 
not begin the line, and corresponding to the rising inflec- 
tion, according to elocutionary principles, must emphat- 
ically open the channel of thought, as if to speed it 
forward, producing thus an anticipative effect. That 
accompanying initial measure, in which the high tone be- 
gins but does not end the line, and corresponding to the 
downward inflection, must emphatically close the channel 
of thought, producing thus a conclusive effect. Now con- 
trast the following. Is it not a fact that the rising move- 
ments have a constant tendency to sweep the thought 
along with their current, and the falling to check it? 
This is rising: 

Though my back I should rub 
On Diogenes' tub, 
How my fancy could prance 
In a dance of romance. 

— Life of Napoleon : Scott. 

Over hill, over dale, 
Thorough bush, thorough brier, 
Over park, over pale, 
Thorough flood, thorough fire. 
— Midsummer Nig /it's Dream, ii., 1: Shakespear. 

Past cannon they dashed, 
Past cannon that flashed, 
Past cannon that crashed 
Through their columns in vain. 

— A Charge: Anon. 



IO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



And these are falling: 



Down they tear, man and horse, 
Down in their awful course ; 
Trampling with bloody heel 
Over the crashing steel, — 
All their eyes forward bent, 
Rushed the Black Regiment. 

— The Black Regiment : Poker. 

Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 
Volley'd and thundered. 

— Charge of the Light Brigade : Tennyson. 

These, again, are rising : 

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best. 

— Lochinvar : Scott. 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he, 

I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three. 

— How They Brought the Good News : Browning. 

When dark December glooms the day 
And takes my autumn joys away ; 
When short and scant the sunbeam throws 
Upon the weary waste of snows 
A cold and profitless regard, 

When such the country cheer, I come, 
Well pleased, to seek my city home ; 
For converse and for books to change 
The forest's melancholy range, 
And welcome with renewed delight 
The busy day and social night. 

— Marmion : Scott. 
And these are falling: 

Buried and cold when my heart stills her motion, 
Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean. 

— Exile of Erin : Campbell. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. Ill 

But amid my broken slumbers 
Still I heard those magic numbers, 



Till their chimes in sweet collision 
Mingled with each wandering vision, 
Mingled with the fortune-telling 
Gypsy bands of dreams and fancies, 
Which amid the waste expanses 
Of the silent land of tranches 
Have their solitary dwelling. 

— Carillon 

These are rising : 



Longfellow. 



Among the fancies tell me this, 
What is the thing we call a kiss ? 
I shall resolve ye what it is. 

— The Kiss : R. Herrick. 

A higher hand must make her mild 

If all be not in vain ; and guide 

Her footsteps moving side by side 
With wisdom like the younger child. 

— In Memo?iam : Tennyson. 

And these are falling : 

How delicious is the winning 
Of a kiss at love's beginning, 
When two mutual hearts are sighing 
For the knot there 's no untying. 

— The First Kiss : Campbell. 

And all fancies yearn to cover 

The hard earth whereon she passes, 

With the thymy-scented grasses. 
And all hearts do pray, " God love her." 

— A Portrait : Mrs. Browning. 

The two effects under consideration may not be appar- 
ent to the reader in all of these quotations ; but if we 
turn to the stronger methods of securing the same end — 
those corresponding to the rising and falling circumflex, — 
none probably will fail to recognize them. Notice, in the 



112 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

following, how the effect of the rising movement is in- 
creased when an accented syllable at the end of one line 
is followed immediately by an accent at the beginning 
of the next line : 

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn ; 
Leave me here ; and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 

— Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 

In the same way, the cJiccking effect of the falling move- 
ment is stronger when an unaccented syllable at the end 
of one line is followed by another unaccented syllable at 
the beginning of the next ; e. g. : 

With deep affection 
And recollection, 
I often think of 

Those Shandon bells ; 
Whose sounds so wild would, 
In the days of childhood, 
Fling round my cradle 

Their magic spells. 

— The Bells of Shandon : F. Malony. 

But the rhythm corresponding to the rising inflection, 
besides emphatically opening the channel of thought, as 
if to speed its current onward, should also, according to 
the principles of elocution, have the effect of representing 
anticipation, hope. Look at this : 

When ends life's transient dream, 
When death's cold sullen stream 

Shall o'er me roll, 
Blest Saviour, then in love, 
Fear and distrust remove, 
O bear me safe above, 

A ransomed soul. 

— Hymn : Palmer. 

And that corresponding to the falling inflection should 



ETOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. 1 13 

represent conclusiveness, therefore confidence, assurance ; 
e. g. : 

There no sigh of memory swelleth ; 
There no tear of misery welleth ; 

***** 
Past is all the cold world's scorning, 
Gone the night and broke the morning. 

— Hymn : Anon. 

Here again, too, is anticipation, expectancy, hope : 

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, 

Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here ; 

Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, 

And a heart and a hand all thine own to the last. 

— Come, Rest, etc.: Moore. 

And here, conclusiveness, confidence, assurance : 

Come in the evening, or come in the morning ; 

Come when you 're looked for, or come without warning ; 

Kisses and welcome you Tl find here before you, 

And the oftener you come here, the more I '11 adore you. 

— The Welco77ie : T. Davis. 

This again, like the rising inflection, represents in- 
decision, doubt : 

That men with knowledge merely played, 
I told thee — hardly nigher made, 
Though scaling slow from grade to grade ; 

Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, 
Named man, may hope some truth to find, 
That bears relation to the mind. 

— Two Voices: Tennyson. 

And this, corresponding to the falling inflection, repre- 
sents so much decision and disregard of doubtful considera- 
tions as to seem flippant : 

Ah, but traditions, inventions, 

(Say we and make up a visage,) 
So many men with such various intentions, 



114 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Down the past ages must know more than this age ! 
Leave the web all its dimensions ! 

— Master Httgues of Saxe-Gotha : Browning. 

The old fashioned narrative that dealt with facts, con- 
cerning which one could be decided and sure, could find a 
satisfactory expression in the hexameter; e.g.: 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts that beneath it 
Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the 
huntsman ? 

— Evangeline : Longfellow. 

But the present age is analytic. Its narratives deal with 
motives, concerning which no one can be sure. Is this 
one reason why we prefer a more indecisive, Jiesitating 
movement? as in our heroic metre : 

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 

Brought death into the world and all our woe, etc. 

— Paradise Lost : Milton. 

\ 

Or that Ave feel, instinctively, that the more decisive 
metre is fitter for the mock heroic? — 

Tell me whither I may hie me — tell me, dear one, that I may know, 
Is it up the highest Andes ? down a horrible volcano ? 

— Ferdinand o and Elvira : Gilbert. 

Or for the pathetic, — in a case like this, in which the 
very decisiveness of the mood, the remorseless assurance of 
being right, that is conveyed by the style, enhances the 
effect ? Notice it : 

One more unfortunate, 
Weary of breath, 
Rashly importunate, 
Gone to her death. 

— Bridge of Sighs : Hood. 



CHAPTER X. 

POETIC PITCH — MELODY AND RHYME. 

Variety and Monotony in Elocution and Poetry representing less or more 
Control over Self and the Subject — True Significance of Alliteration, 
Assonance, etc. — Rhyme introducing Element of Sameness — Increases 
effects of Versification, of Unity of Poetic Form, of Emphasis of all 
Kinds, of Regularity of Movement, of Rapidity of Thought — Results 
of Changing the Order of the Occurrence of Rhymes in Tennyson's In 
Memoriam — Blank Verse admitting of Great Variety Preferable for Long 
Productions. 

TDASSING on now, to consider the poetic analogues for 
variety and monotony in elocutionary melody, it will 
be recognized at once that the first is found in verse in 
which the sounds differ greatly, and the second in that in 
which they are very similar. The following, therefore, 
corresponding to varied melody, represent, and very 
appropriately, too, a buoyant, unrestrained mood, in which 
the soul is exercising very little control over either itself or 
its modes of expression : 

Her feet beneath her petticoat 
Like little mice stole in and out, 

As if they feared the light : 
But oh, she dances such a way 
No sun upon an Easter-day 

Is half so fine a sight ! 

— Ballad zipon a Wedding : Suckling. 

Hast thou seen the down in the air, 
When wanton blasts have tossed it ? 

ri5 



1 16 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Or the ship on the sea. 

When ruder winds have crossed it ? 

— Lute Song : Suckling. 

Roll on, ye stars ; exult in youthful prime ; 
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time ; 
Near and more near your beamy cars approach, 
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach, 
Flowers of the sky. 

— Pleasures of Hope : Ccunpbell. 

And the following, in which there is much alliteration 
(i. e., repetition of the same consonant-sounds), and asso- 
nance (7. e., repetition of the same vowel-sounds), represent 
a very high degree of restraint on the part of the soul, and 
control exercised over itself and its modes of expression. 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars, 
Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
Followed by the brave of other lands, 
He on whom from both her open hands ; 
Lavish honor showered all her stars, 
And affluent fortune emptied all her horn. 

— Ode on Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 

More strong than strong disaster, 

For fate and fear too strong ; 
Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her, 

Whose hands would purge of wrong ; 
Our lord, our light, our master, 

Whose word sums up all song. 

— Garden of Cymodoce : Swinburne. 

These quotations, and the principle they illustrate, show 
us the true significance of passages in which we find 
grouped the same sounds, as in assonance and alliteration 
just mentioned; or similar sounds, as in poetic gradation 
(i. e., a series of vowels all different, in which each is at the 
smallest remove of all from the one following it), and 
syzygy (i. e., a combination of consonants easy to pro- 



MELODY AND RHYME. 117 

nounce). All these sprang, originally, from that tendency 
at the basis of all art-construction, to bring together, as a 
result of comparison, things that are alike or allied. But 
their significance, which alone concerns us at present, is 
this : if no attention whatever be paid to the succession 
of vowels and consonants ; if those combined be arranged 
so that they cannot be pronounced easily and smoothly, 
the verses appear devoid of art, the chief effect of which 
is to reduce that with which it has to deal to order and 
form. In the following, for instance, the writer manifests 
no control over his own powers of expression or his ideas. 
He presumably meant to give them an artistic form, but 
as arranged they produce no artistic effect. 

Numerous were the friends that gathered, 

When in the good ship " Hibernia " 

They weighed anchor in the harbor 

Of the Metropolitan City. 

It would take too long to narrate 

All the many things that happened 

In their voyage across the ocean. 

— Sketches of Palestine : Hammond. 

If, on the contrary, the writer has made too much of 
qualities like assonance and alliteration, the impression con- 
veyed is that of too much suppression and control. There 
seems to be no spontaneity in his work. The following 
produces, as is its intention, an artificial effect. 

Holof ernes, I will somewhat affect the letter, for it argues facility : 
The preyful Princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket ; 
Some say a sore ; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. 

— Love's Labor 's Lost, iv., 2 : Shakespear. 

Swinburne is sometimes almost equally artificial. 

His eyes gat grace of sleep, to see 

The deep divine dark day-shine of the sea, 

Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways, 



Il8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Broad-based or branching as a sea-flower sprays 
That side or this dividing. 

— Thalassius. 

The following are better, because in the sense there is 
some reason for the alliteration. 

O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, 
Weak wind, wind-broken, wearier wind than we. 

— On the Cliffs : Swinburne. 

And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime 
Of their reiterate rhyme. 

— Idem. 

Between the two extremes that have been mentioned, 
however, the poet can find every degree of sameness and 
change, unity and variety, with which to represent every 
kind of thought truthfully. 

It is evident, from what has been said, that the chief 
effect of rhyme, or the recurrence of similar sounds at the 
ends of lines, is to introduce into the verse the element of 
sameness. This sameness of itself, as has been intimated 
in another place, increases the effects of versification by 
directing attention to the ends of the lines and thus sepa- 
rating them. Besides this, especially if the rhymes are 
used at like intervals, as is generally the case, they tend 
to give unity to the form. Their influence in this regard 
is precisely analogous to that of the cadences and half 
cadences, which, coming at the ends of musical phrases, 
give the effect of unity to musical composition. Notice 
in the following how often the alternate lines, both in the 
music and words, end at the same pitch. Notice, too, at 
the close of each line, as in the illustration in the last 
chapter, how the music of the melody rises with accented 
or masculine verse-endings, the analogues of rising inflec- 
tions ; and falls with unaccented or feminine verse-endings, 
the analogues of falling inflections. Of course there are 



MELODY AND RHYME. 



II 9 



tunes set to words in which correspondences of this kind are 
less apparent ; but the following represent arrangements 
sufficiently common to justify what is here said of them. 

Lines Ended with Like Effects of Pitch in the Melody both of the Music and Verse. 
Falling or Feminine Endings. Rising or Masculine Endings. 

WILMOT. 

-rd — =P^ — I — n 1 ! : =) -r-P^ — ^ l-n 

Life and joy thy beams im - part, 



_n..L .J .. .f"^ | 


1 r^ 1 


THj 4 & *• *i 1 


td -,-g J 1 H 








Still we wait for thine ap -pear-ing; 


«v u iii 1 r ' 








^-4-U— V ^— •- 




II 1 1 


11 1 1 



jaf: 



=t=fc 



*=St 



*-« -J-« 



Chas-ing all our fears, and cheer-ing 



^—-4: 



Ev - ery poor, be - night-ed heart. 



-^ m m. 42 m. 



BAYLEY. 




Fix in us thine hum - ble dwell - ing ; 
d. s. Vis - it us with thy sal - va - tion ; 



§=E^g 



All thy faifh-ful mer - cies crown ; 
En - ter ev - ery trem-bling heart. 



T , r .J3 



:* —*' 




Je - sus ! thou art all corn-pass - ion, 
• —. ,-f ' 1*-— g- 



Pure un-bound-ed love thou art ; 



--r_* 



&=& 



m 



120 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Like these similarly ending cadences and half cadences 
in music, rhymes furnish a framework about which, or 
rather within which, all the other form-elements of the 
verse are brought together. This is the reason why it is 
easier for beginners to write poetry in rhymes than in 
blank verse. All successful verse must have form, and 
rhymes of themselves tend to give it this. 

Not only so, but — what is of main importance in our 
present treatment of the subject — they serve equally to 
furnish a framework for the poetic thought. The rhym- 
ing words, especially the last of two or three that rhyme, 
always appear to be especially emphatic. In fact, they 
seem to add to the emphasis in almost every possible way. 
They augment the effects of duration or quantity, because 
at the end of the line, where the rhyme usually is, the 
voice, as a rule, pauses ; of force, because rhyming sylla- 
bles, at least the last ones in which a sound is repeated, 
appear to be pronounced more strongly than others ; of 
pitch, because, as we have found, where the vowel-sounds 
are the same, the pitch seems the same ; and of quality, as 
we shall find, because the likeness of the rhyming sylla- 
bles necessarily attracts attention. For all these reasons, 
rhymes necessarily tend to thrust into prominence the 
ideas expressed in them. Notice this fact as exemplified 
in the following : 

Know, then, thyself ; presume hot God to scan ; 
The proper study of mankind is man. 

— Essay on Man : Pope, 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul. 

— Idem. 

All nature is but art unknown to thee ; 

All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 



RHYMES. ■ 121 

All discord, harmony not understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good ; 
And spite of pride in erring reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. 

— Idem. 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove, 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 

And very few to love : 

A violet by a mossy stone 

Half hidden from the eye — 
Fair as a star when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be ; 
But she is in her grave, and oh, 

The difference to me ! 

— The Lost Love : Wordsworth. 

In connection with the effect of unity, and as one 
factor of it, regularly recurring rhymes also impart an 
effect of regularity to the movement, as in these : 

Vital spark of heavenly flame, 
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame. 
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! 

— Dying Christian to his Soul : Pope. 

A kind and gentle heart he had, 

To comfort friends and foes ; 
The naked every day he clad, — 

When he put on his clothes. 
— Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog : Goldsmith. 

Singing through the forest ; 

Rattling over ridges ; 
Shooting under arches ; 

Rumbling over bridges ; 



122 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Whizzing through the mountains ; 

Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
Bless me, this is pleasant, 

Riding on the rail. 

— Railroad Rhyme : Saxe. 

In the degree in which the rhymes are near together, 
they give an effect of rapidity to the movement — not so 
much of the form, as in short quantity, as of the thought. 
It has been said that the rhyming words emphasize 
strongly the ideas expressed through them. They con- 
vey the impression, therefore, that something important 
has been said ; and if they occur frequently, they suggest 
that many important things have been said, and said in 
a short time, or — what is equivalent to this — that the 
thought in the poem is moving on rapidly, an effect that 
could not be produced by the same words arranged differ- 
ently. Of course, it follows that the nearer together the 
rhymes are, the more rapid seems to be the movement. 
Compare these two stanzas, both from Sir Walter Scott's 
Eve of St. John : 

The baron returned in three days' space, 

And his looks were sad and sour, 
And weary was his courser's pace, 

As he reached his rocky tower. 

My lady each night sought the lonely light 

That burns on the wild Watchfold, 
For from height to height the beacons bright 

Of the English foemen told. 

Perhaps no more interesting study of the different 
effects of rhyme that have just been mentioned is any- 
where afforded than in Tennyson's In Manor iam. In 
several of the stanzas of this poem the third and fourth 
lines may change places without detriment to the sense. 
But if this change be made, the rhymes at the ends of the 



RHYMES. 123 

first and fourth lines are brought nearer together, thus in- 
creasing the effect of rapidity as well as the emphasis at 
the end of the latter line. Moreover, all four lines are 
then heard at regular intervals, thus increasing also the 
effect of regularity. The consequence is, that the slow 
and therefore judicial, the unemphatic and therefore 
doubtful, the irregular and therefore hesitating impres- 
sion conveyed by the thought of the poem, as arranged in 
its present form, almost disappears, giving place to the 
easy and even flow of unwavering assurance. Those who 
doubt whether poetic sound has much to do with poetic 
representation, may learn a lesson by examining the fol- 
lowing stanzas in these two forms. Read these first : 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man he knows not why ; 

He thinks he was not made to die ; 
And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 

Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
Our wills are ours to make them thine. 

Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be : 

They are but broken lights of thee, 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 

We have but faith : we cannot know : 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness : let it grow. 

And now read these : 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man he knows not why ; 
And thou hast made him : thou art just : 

He thinks he was not made to die. 



1 24 POE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
Our wills are ours to make them thine ; 

Our wills are ours, we know not how. 

Our little systems have their day ; 

They have their day and cease to be : 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they : 

They are but broken lights of thee. 

We have but faith ; we cannot know, 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 
A beam in darkness : let it grow ; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee. 

Where rhymes are used, these effects of unity, regular- 
ity, and rapidity are always present to some extent, and 
all, if continued too long, become monotonous and tire- 
some, besides being unfitted for the representation of 
varying moods and scenes. Therefore, for long produc- 
tions, poets usually prefer blank-verse, — either regular, as 
in Shakespear's plays and the " Paradise Lost "; e.g. : 

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, 
And make fair weather in your blust'ring land. 

— King John, v., I : Shakespear. 

or irregular or broken, as in Goethe's Faust and Southey's 
TJialaba ; e. g. : 

How beautifut is night ! 
A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
No mist obscures, nor cloud nor speck nor stain 
Breaks the serene of heaven : 
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 
Rolls through the dark blue depths. 

— Thalaba, 1 : Southey. 

Blank-verse, in a sense not true of verse that rhymes, 
admits of irregular accents ; as, for instance, in the follow- 
ing, in which only the last line is absolutely regular : 



RHYMES. 125 

Upon our sides it never shall be broken. 
And noble Dolphin, albeit we swear 
A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith 
To your proceedings, yet believe me, prince, 
I am not glad that such a sore of time 
Should seek a plaster by contemned revolt. 

— King John, v., 2 : Shakespear. 

It is not necessary to argue that verse admitting of 
changes like these can be continued almost indefinitely 
without becoming monotonous, and can be used in de- 
scribing almost all possible varieties of moods and scenes, 
without ceasing to be representative. 



CHAPTER XL 

ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 

Quality represents the Emotive Nature of the Soul as influencing and in- 
fluenced by both Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies — Kinds of Qual- 
ity, and what each represents in Elocution — Letter-Sounds used in 
Verse to produce Effects of the Aspirate Quality — Guttural — Pectoral — 
Pure — Orotund — Illustrations of Poetic Effects of all these Kinds when 
combined. 

'THE last elocutionary element, the influence of which 
upon poetic form we have to consider, and the second 
that has to do with the tunes of verse, is quality ; or, as it 
is sometimes called, on account of that to which it corre- 
sponds in painting, tone-color. Its different varieties are 
determined by the relative proportions in which noise and 
music are combined in them ; or, in other words, by the 
different actions of the organs of utterance in causing 
more or less of the breath, while leaving the lungs, to be 
vocalized and rendered resonant. 

What different kinds of quality are fitted to represent, 
it needs but little observation to discover. It certainly is 
not physical energy. When Patti passes from a loud to a 
soft, or from an abrupt to a smooth tone, she changes 
greatly the kinds of energy, but her voice still retains the 
same Patti-quality. Nor does quality represent mere 
intellectuality. A man, without changing in the least an 
habitual nasal or wheezing quality, may give every inflec- 
tion needed in order to represent the merely mental 

126 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 12/ 

phases of that which actuates him. But if we frighten 
him severely, we may make it impossible for him to use 
any other sound than a whisper ; if in connection with this, 
we anger him, he will hiss; or, if at length he recovers his 
voice, he will use the harsh, jarring, interrupted hard-e- 
quality of tone, termed the guttural ; or, if that which he 
would repel is too great to make anger appropriate, it 
may widen and stiffen his throat so as to produce the hol- 
low, almost inarticulate indication of awe and horror given 
by what is termed the pectoral quality. Release him now 
from the influence of affright, anger, or horror, and put 
him into a gently satisfied mood, and he will use his near- 
est approach to pure quality. Stir him then to prof ound 
emotion, inspired by what is deeply satisfying, and all his 
vocal passages will expand again, and he will produce his 
nearest approach to the full, round, resonant quality 
termed orotund. 

For these reasons, it seems indisputable that quality 
represents the feelings, the temper, the spiritual condition 
of the higher emotive nature, — what I have termed the 
soul, by which is meant, as needs scarcely be said again, 
the principle of life holding body and mind together, influ- 
encing and influenced by both. The soul communicates 
with the external world never wholly through the in- 
stinctive nature, nor wholly through the reflective, but 
always through one of the two modified by its connec- 
tion with the other. The quality of sound, therefore, 
represents the quality of the feeling that vivifies the soul. 
This feeling, on its physical side, and with its most 
physical coloring, gives us, first, the serpent-like hissing 
aspirate ; next, with an intellectual coloring the guttural 
quality ; and last, with an emotional coloring, thepectoral. 
On its intellectual side, it gives us first, with a physical 



128 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

coloring, the soft whispering aspirate ; next, with an intel- 
lectual coloring, the pure quality ; and last, with an 
emotional coloring, the orotund. Of these six forms of 
quality, the first four are classed in a general way as im- 
pure, because there is in them more breath or noise than 
vocal tone or music ; and the last two are classed %.■$> pure. 

The first three again refer to what one wishes to repel ; 
the Jiissing aspirate indicating feelings like affrigJit, amaze- 
ment, indignation, and contempt ; the guttural, as has been 
said, hostility ; and the pectoral, awe or horror. The last 
three refer to what, if not wholly satisfactory, at least, ex- 
cites in one no movement aimed against it. The soft 
whisper indicates feelings like stirprise, interest, or solici- 
tude ; the tone termed distinctively the pure represents 
gentle contemplatio?i of what may be zither joyous or sad; 
and the orotund, deep delight, admiration, courage, or de- 
termination, as inspired by contemplation of the noble or 
grand. 

All these different qualities can be given by good elocu- 
tionists when vocalizing almost any of the consonants or 
vowels ; but the poet for his effects must depend upon 
the sounds necessarily given to words in ordinary pro- 
nunciation. For instance, certain consonants, called 
variously aspirates, sibilants, or atonies, viz. : //, s, z, w, sh, 
wh, th, p, t, f are aspirate in themselves ; that is, we are 
obliged to whisper when we articulate them. Therefore 
in poetic effects, considered aside from those that are 
elocutionary, the aspirate must be produced by using 
words containing some of these consonants ; and, if it be 
the repellant aspirate or the hiss, by using also consonants 
giving guttural effects, likely, ch, and r. Here, for in- 
stance, is the poetic aspirate of amazement, affright, indig- 
nation, contempt. 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 129 

Out of my sight, thou serpent ; that name best 
Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false 
And hateful ; nothing wants but that thy shape 
Like his and color serpentine may show 
Thy inward fraud. 

— Paradise Lost, 10 : Milton. 

What 's the business 
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 
The sleepers of the house ? speak ! speak ! 

— Macbeth, ii., 1 : Shakespear. 

You souls of geese 
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run 
From slaves that apes would beat. 

— Coriolanus, i., 4 : Shakespear. 

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ; 
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs 
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clep'd 
All by the name of dogs. 

— Macbeth, iii., 1 : Shakespear. 

And here the poetic aspirate of surprise, interest, and 
solicitude. 

What ? keep a week away ? seven days and nights ? 
Eightscore eight hours, — and lover's absent hours, — 
More tedious than the dial eightscore times ? 

— Othello, iii., 4 : Shakespear. 

The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near" ; 
And the white rose weeps, " She is late " ; 
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear " ; 
And the lily whispers, " I wait." 

— Ma ud : Ten nyscm .. 

Jul. — Sweet, so would I ; 

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. 

Good-night good-night ; parting is such sweet sorrow, 

That I shall Say good-night till it be morrow. 

Rom. — Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast — 

Would I were sleep and peace so sweet to rest. 

— Romeo and Juliet, ii., 2: Shakespear. 



130 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The aspirated sounds do not depend upon the use of 
the vowels. But this is not true of the other qualities. 
In the poetic guttural and pure tones, short and closed 
vowel-sounds like those in the words pin, met, hat, not, and 
far, among which we must include also the long and 
closed ^-sound in keen must predominate. In the poetic 
pectoral and orotund, long and open vowel-sounds like 
those in more, fool, bow, boil, all, fail, among which we 
must include the short but open sound of u in but, must 
predominate. Besides this, for the guttural, certain pala- 
tic and lingual consonant-sounds, like those of g, j, k, ch, 
r, and, at times, especially when used in combination with 
other consonants, dental and labial sounds, like those 
in b, d, and v, are essential. Here are examples of the 
guttural indicating, as has been said, hostility. 

Thou cream-faced loon, 
Where gottest thou that goose look ? 

— Macbeth, v., 3 : Shakespear. 

Despised by cowards for greater cowardice, 
And srorned even by the vicious for such vices 
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception 
Defy all codes. 

— Marino Ealiero, v., 3 : Byron. 

But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
As the churches have killed their Christ. 

— Mated : Tennyson. 

Till I, with as fierce an anger, spoke, 

And he struck me, madman, over the face, 

Struck me before the languid fool, 

Who was gaping and grinning by. 

— Idem. 

The elocutionary pectoral, with its hollow tones, always 
suggests more or less of a breathing quality. Therefore 
the poetic pectoral requires, in addition to the use of the 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 131 

long and open vowel-sounds like those of long 0, 00, ou, 
oi, broad a, and short u, that of the aspirate consonants 
like h, s, z, zt>, s/i, zu/i, th, r, p, t, f, and sometimes b, d, 
and v. Notice the preponderance of these letters in all 
of the following expressions of awe or horror : 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
All. — Double, double toil and trouble ; 
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. 

********* 

All. — Seek to know no more. 

Macb. — I will be satisfied : deny me this, 

And an eternal curse fall on you ! Let me know — 
********* 

1st Witch. — Shew ! 
id Witch.— Shew ! 
3d Witch.— Shew ! 
All. — Shew his eyes and grieve his heart ! 

Come like shadows, so depart. 
Macb. — Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo ; down ! 

Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs : — and thy hair 
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. 

— Macbeth, iv., 1 : Shakespeare. 

And with blood for dew, the bosom boils ; 

And a giist of sulphur is all its smell ; 
And lo, he is horribly in the toils 

Of a coal-black giant flower of hell. 

— The Heretic's Tragedy : R. Browning. 

So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 

Till blood for blood atones. 
Ay, though he 's buried in a cave, 

And trodden down with stones, 
And years have rotted off his flesh, — 

The world shall see his bones. 

— The Dream of Eugene Aram : Hood. 

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, 

As one great furnace, flamed ; yet from those flames 

No light but rather darkness visible, 



132 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Served only to discover sights of woe, 

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes. 

— Paradise Lost, 1 : Milton. 

Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most 
On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls. 

— Epilogtie : R. Browning. 

Notice the rhymes, too, in the following : 

" Dust and ashes." So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. 
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what 's become of all the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and grown old. 

— A Toccata of GaluppVs : R. Browning. 

The poetic pure tone necessitates, as has been said, the 
use of the short or closed vowel-sounds. In connection 
with these almost any of the consonants, except the gut- 
tural, may be used to any extent. Here are examples of 
the poetic pure quality, representing, as already intimated, 
gentle contemplation with feelings, not too strong, of what 
may be either joyous or sad. 

All night merrily, merrily, 
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, 
Laughing and clapping their hands between, 

All night merrily, merrily. 

— The Mer?nan : Tennyson. 

She sleeps : her breathings are not heard 

In palace chambers far apart. 
The fragrant tresses are not stirred 

That lie upon her charmed heart. 
She sleeps ; on either hand upswells 

The gold-fringed pillow lightly pressed. 
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 

A perfect form in perfect rest. 

— The Day Dream : Tennyson. 

The orotund, as contrasted with the pure tone, has a 
slightly husky as well as hollow effect. Therefore its 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 1 33 

poetic form necessitates, besides the use of the long and 
open vowels, that of the subvowels or subtonics, like m, n, 
ng, I, b, d, and v. Here are examples of the poetic orotund, 
indicating any thing, not provoking, which stirs one to 
deep feeling, or, as was stated before, to deep delight, admi- 
ration, courage, or determination, as inspired by contem- 
plation of the noble or grand. 

" Glory to God," unnumbered voices sung ; 
" Glory to God," the vales and valleys rung ; 
Voices that hailed creation's primal morn, 
And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born. 
Slowly, bare-headed through the surf we bore 
The sacred cross, and kneeling kissed the shore. 

— Voyage of Columbus : Rogers. 

Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this son of York, 
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 

— Richard III., i., 1 : Shakespear. 

Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume 
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb, 
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll 
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul. 
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of Dismay, 
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day. 
The strife is o'er — the pangs of nature close, 
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes. 

— Pleasures of Hope : Campbell. 

Peace and order and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light and law. 

— Barbara Frietchie : Whittier. 

All the more impure qualities — the hiss, the guttural, 
and the pectoral — represent allied emotions. Therefore, 
in elocution, there is a tendency to combine their effects. 
It is the same in poetry. Notice the following : 



134 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

See with what heat these dogs of hell advance 
To waste and havoc yonder world. . 

******* 

And know not that I call'd and drew them thither, 

My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth, 

Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed 

On what was pure ! till, cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst 

With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling 

Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, 

Both Sin and Death and yawning Grave, at last 

Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of hell 

Forever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. 

— Paradise Lost, io : Milton. 

Fret till your proud heart breaks ; 
Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge ? 
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humor ? By the gods, 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen 
Tho' it do split you ; for from this day forth 
I '11 use you for my mirth — yea, for my laughter — 
When you are waspish. 

— Julius Cccsar, iv., 3 : Shakespear. 

So, too, the poetic pure and orotund naturally go to- 
gether ; for example : 

For though the giant ages heave the hill 

And break the shore, and evermore 

Make and break and work their will ; 

Though worlds on worlds in myriad myriads roll 

Round us, each with different\powers 

And other forms of life than ours, 

What know we greater than the soul ? 

On God and godlike men we build our trust. 

— Ode to Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 

Much of the representative beauty of poetry depends 
on a judicious alternation of these different qualities of 
sound. Notice this fact as exemplified in the last three 



ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 1 35 

quotations, as well as in the fourth and fifth lines of the 
following, where the poetic orotund is introduced in the 
midst of an aspirate passage : 

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves. He sets, and his last beams 
Fall on a slave ; not such as swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 
To crimson glory and undying fame ; 
But base ignoble slaves ; slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords 
Rich in some dozen paltry villages, 
Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great 
In that strange spell — a name. 

— Rienzis Address to Romans : Mitford. 



CHAPTER XII. 

EFFECTS OF POETIC QUALITY CONTINUED. 

Imitative Effects of Letter-Sounds corresponding to Aspirate Quality, rep- 
resenting Serpents, Sighing, Rapidity, Winds, Slumber, Conspiracy, 
Fear, Frightening, Checking — Guttural Quality, representing Grating, 
Forcing, Flowing Water, Rattling,. Effort — Pectoral Quality, repre- 
senting Groaning, Depth, Hollowness — Pure Quality, representing 
Thinness, Clearness, Sharpness, Cutting — Orotund Quality, repre- 
senting Fulness, Roundness, Murmuring, Humming, Denying, etc. — 
These Effects as combined in Various Illustrations of Carving ; Dash- 
ing, Rippling, and Lapping Water ; Roaring ; Clashing ; Cursing ; 
Shrieking ; Fluttering ; Crawling ; Confusion ; Horror ; Spite ; Scorn ; 
etc. 

ET us turn now to poetic effects produced by quality- 
corresponding to those of dramatic, as distinguished 
from discoursive, elocution ; and first to the aspirate. In 
poetry, as in elocution, the rcpellant aspirate imitates any 
thing that hisses ; for example : 

He would have spoke, 

But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongue 

To forked tongue ; for now were all transformed 

Alike, to serpents all as accessories 

To his bold riot : dreadful was the din 

Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now 

With complicated monsters, head and tail, 

Scorpion and asp, and amphisbsena dire, 

Cerastes, horn'd hydrus, and ellops drear, 

And dipsas ; not so thick swarmed once the soil 

Bedropped with blood of Gorgon, or the isle 

Ophiusa. 

— Paradise Lost, 10 : Milton. 

136 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 1 37 

The acquiescent aspirate imitates any thing that sighs ; 
for example : 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs ; 

She swore. — In faith 't was strange, 't was passing strange, 

'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful ; 

She wish'd she had not heard it ; yet she wish'd 

That heaven had made her such a man. 

— Othello, i., 3 : Shakespear. 

But it is possible to go still more into detail than this. 
As Guest has pointed out in his " History of English 
Rhythms," developing for fhat purpose a suggestion made 
by Bacon, certain letters and combinations of them seem 
especially adapted for the imitation of certain specific 
operations. Things, for instance, that fly rapidly, make 
sounds resembling those of the sibilants. Hence the ap- 
propriateness of the following : 

How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot 
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face 
Of their pursuers. 

— Paradise Reg., 3 : Milton. 

Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees 
In spring-time. 

— Paradise Lost, 1 : Idem. 

The winds make similar sounds : 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. 

— Elegy : Gray. 

By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. 

— V Allegro : Milton. 

So do nurses, fountains, and sea-waves, when lulling one 
to sleep : 

O Sleep, O gentle Sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee 
That thou no more wilt weigh mine eyelids down, 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 



138 



POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber ; 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody. 

— 2 Henry IV., iii., I : Shakespear. 

In the following we seem to hear the whisperings of 
conspirators : 

Who rather had, 
Though they themselves did suffer by it, behold 
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see 
Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going 
About their functions friendly. 

— Cariolanus, iv., 6: Shakespear. 



And here the whisperings of fear : 

A hideous giant, horrible and high. 
— Faerie Queene, 



i, 7. 



Spt 



Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom 
To enter and his dark suggestions hide. 

— Paradise Lost, g : Milton. 

When we wish to frighten a bird or animal, we often 
make a prolonged sound of s, and then stop it suddenly 
with the sound of t. Now, look at the use of st in the 
following to indicate motion that is checked by being 
frightened : 

Stern were their looks like wild amazed steers, 
Staring with hollow eyes and stiff upstanding hairs. 

— Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 13 : Spenser. 

With staring countenance stern, as one astown'd, 
And staggering steps, to meet what sudden stour 
Had wrought that horror strange. 

—Idem, 1, 8, 5. 

But she fast stood. 
Pallas had put a boldness in her breast 
And in her fair limbs tender fear compressed, 

And still she stood. 

— Chapman's Tr., Odyssey. 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF FETTER-SOUNDS. 1 39 

Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears ; 
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears. 

— Childe Harold, 1 : Byron. 

P and t, because their sounds cannot be prolonged, as 
well as d, when pronounced like t, have also the effect of 
representing the stopping of movement ; e. g. : 

Sudden he stops ; his eye is fixed : away, 
Away thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : 

Now is thy time to perish or display 

The skill that yet may check his mad career. 

— Idem. 

If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, 
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till 
Thou hast howled away twelve winters. 

— Tet)ipest, i., 2 : Shakespear. 

The poetic guttural imitates any thing that grates ; for 
example : 

How the garden grudged me grass 

Where I stood — the iron gate 
Ground his teeth to let me pass. 

— A Serenade at the Villa : R. Browning. 

Besides this, it is well to notice that the chief guttural 
consonants, g, J, k, and ch t are all made as a result of 
effort, and, more than this, of effort that is internal in 
the sense of not being outwardly visible. They are pro- 
duced by forcing the tongue against the palate, and the 
breath between the two. For this reason they seem to 
be recognized as appropriate for the representation of 
effort, especially of effort that is internal ; for example : 

Caitiff, to pieces shake, 
That under covert and convenient seeming 
Hast practised on man's life. Close pent-up guilts, 
Rive your concealing continents, and cry 
These dreadful summoners grace. — I am a man. 

— King Bear, iii. , 2 : Shakespear. 



1 40 POETRY AS A REP RE SEN TA TI VE ART. 

Thou, trumpet, there 's my purse, 
Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe : 
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek 
Out-swell the colic of puff'd Aquilon ; 
Come stretch thy chest. 

— Troilus and Cressida, iv., 5: Shakespear. 

This last quotation suggests that not only the chief 
guttural consonants, but b and p also, though in a less 
degree, may represent effort. This will not seem strange 
from our present point of view, when we notice that they 
are both produced by compressing the lips precisely as we 
do when we are making a strong muscular exertion : 

And him beside sits ugly Barbarism, 
And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late 
Out of dred darkness of the deep Abysme, 
Where being bred he light and heaven does hate. 

— Tears of the Muses : Spenser. 

Behemoth, biggest born of earth. 

— Par. Lost, 7 : Milton. 

His bursting passion into plaints thus poured. 

— Idem, 9. 

Their broad bare backs upheave 
Into the clouds. 

— Idem, 7. 

L and r, like the other consonants just mentioned, are 
formed by interrupting the flow of the breath ; but in 
these it is not checked even for a moment, but passes 
outward at either side of the tongue. Both, therefore, 
are felt to be appropriate for imitating sounds of flowing 
waters or liquids, or other objects having this motion ; 
for example : 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
Double, double toil and trouble, 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

— Macbeth, iv., 1 : Shakespear. 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 141 

Some of serpent kind, 
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involved 
Their snaky folds. 

— Par. Lost, 7 : Milton. 

The crisped brooks 
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold. 

* ^c ^ ^ * * * 

Pour'd forth profuse on hill and dale and plain. 

— 4, Idem. 

O'er which the mantling vine 
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 
Luxuriant, meanwhile murmuring waters fall 
Down the slope hills dispersed or in a lake. 

— Idem. 

R has a sound both harsher and higher than /, and is 
better adapted, therefore, for imitating grating and rat- 
tling noises ; e. g. : 

Such bursts of horrid thunder, 

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never 

Remember to have heard. 

— Lear, iii., 2 : Shakespear. 

for this day will pour down, 

If I conjecture aught, no drizzling shower, 
But rattling storm of arrows barb'd with fire. 

—Par. Lost, 6 : Milton. 

The brazen throat of war had ceased to roar. 

— Idem, n. 

And the villainous saltpetre 
Rung a fierce discordant metre 
Round their ears. 

— The Old Continentals ; McMaster. 

And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack. 

— The A merican Flag; : Drake. 



I42 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

L and r, too, in combination with g, k, p) b, st, and 
some other consonants, increase the effect of the noise 
made by stoppage in the flow of the articulating breath ; 
and so they also represent difficulty or effort ; for example : 

Staring full ghastly like a strangled man ; 

His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling ; 

His hand abroad displayed, as one that grasp'd 

And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued. 

Look ! on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking ; 

His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged. 

— 2 Henry VI, Hi., 2 : Shake spear. 

The poetic pectoral imitates any thing X.\izX groans ; for 
example : 

Oh, horror, horror, horror. — Tongue nor heart 
Cannot conceive nor name thee. 

— Macbeth, ii., I : Shakespear. 

So all deep, Jwllow sounds are supposed to be imitated, 
and, as we found when considering pitch, really are imi- 
tated by this class of vowels : 

All these and thousand thousands many more, 
And more deformed monsters thousand-fold, 
With dreadful noise and hollow rombling roar, 
Came rushing. 

— F. Q., 2, 12, 25 : Spenser. 

A dreadful sound 
Which through the woods loud bellowing did rebound. 

— Idem, I, 7, 7. 

So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low 
Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep. 

— Par. Lost, 7 : Milton. 

Hell at last 
Yawning received them whole and on them closed. 

— Idem, 6. 

The poetic pure tones imitate any thing that sounds 
thin and clear ; for example : 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 1 43 

Hear the sledges with the bells, silver bells — 

What a world of merriment their melody fortells ? 

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle in the icy air of night, 

While the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle 

With a crystalline delight. 

— The Bells : Foe. 

The vowels used in pure quality, especially e both 
short and long, and these especially when combined 
with the sibilants and the whispering consonants,/, /, and 
f f produce an effect which some recognized to be imita- 
tive of any thing sharp and cutting ; for example : 

What 's this ? a sleeve ? 'T is like a demi-cannon ; 
What ! up and down, carved like an apple-tart ? 
Here 's snip and nip, and cut and slish and slash. 
Like to a censor in a barber's shop. 

— Taming the Shrew, iv., 3 : Shakespear. 

And thou hast talked 
Of sallies and retires ; of trenches, tents, 
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets ; 
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin ; 
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain, 
And all the current of a heady fight. 

— 1 Henry IV., ii., 3 : Shakespear. 

The clouds were fled 
Driven by a keen north wind that blowing dry 
Wrinkled the face of deluge. 

— Far. Lost, 11 : Milton. 

The whistler shrill that whoso hears doth die. 

— F. Q., 2, 12, 36 : Spenser. 

And at the point two stings infixed are, 

Both deadly sharp, that sharpest steel exceeden far. 

But stings and sharpest steel did far exceed 

The sharpness of his cruel rending claws. 

— F. Q., 1, 11, 11 : Spenser. 

The poetic orotund imitates any thing that sounds full 
and round. It is admirably alternated with pure quality 
in the following : 



1 44 POE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

The old song sounds hollower in mine ear 

Than thin keen sounds of dead men's speech — 

A noise one hears and would not hear ; 
Too strong to die, too weak to reach 
From wave to beach. 

— Felise : Swinburne. 

In connection mainly with the open orotund vowels, 
m, n, and ng always, and b, d, v, and /, when their pre- 
liminary sounds are prolonged, produce tones resembling 
the low notes of musical instruments, or the murmur or 
hum of insects, men, or other objects moving at a dis- 
tance ; for example : 

Married to immortal verse ; 
Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
In notes with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
With wanton heed and giddy cunning ; 
The melting voice through mazes running, 
Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony. 

— V Allegro : Milto?z. 

— Every sound is sweet ; 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy. 

— // Pensero : Milton. 

The bum-cock humm'd wi' lazy drone, 
The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan. 

— The Twa Dogs : Burns. 

Where each old poetic mountain 
Inspiration breathed around, 
Every shade and hallowed fountain 
Murmured deep a solemn sound. 

— The Progress of Poesy : Gray. 

In his "Expression of the Emotions," Darwin taking 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 145 

a suggestion from Wedgevvorth's "Origin of Language," 
surmises that sounds of m and n found in negations like 
nay and no may be traced to the noises made by children 
when refusing food. In our own language, as in most 
others, the 11 especially seems to have this negative effect. 

To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied : 

" Think not but that I know these things, or think 

I know them not : nor therefore am I short 

Of knowing what I ought ; he who receives 

Light from above, from the fountain of light, 

No other doctrine needs, though granted true ; 

But these are false, or little else but dreams, 

Conjectures, fancies built on nothing firm, 

The first and wisest of them all professed 

To know this only, that he nothing knew." 

— Paradise Reg., 4 : Milton. 

Fear naught — nay that I need not say — 
But doubt not aught from mine array. 

Nor would I call a clansman's brand 
For aid against one valiant hand. 

— Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 

The hand of Douglas is his own, 
And never shall in friendly grasp 
The hand of such as Marmion clasp. 

— Marmion, 6 : Idem. 

By combining the sounds of consonants and vowels in 
fulfilment of the principles just mentioned, or of others 
like them, all of our best poets are constantly producing 
effects that are distinctively imitative. For instance, hear 
the knife carving the ivory in this : 

Ancient rosaries, 
Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere. 

— The Pri7icess : Tennyson. 

And the loud dashing and soft rippling of the waves in 
these: 



I46 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Roared as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices. 

— Boadicea : Idem. 

The murm'ring surge 
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes. 

— lea)', iv., 6 : Shakespear. 

And the ice and rocks, resounding with the clanging of 
armor and footsteps in this : 

Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clanged round him as he based 
His feet on juts of slipp'ry crag that rang 
Sharp smitten with the dint of armed heels. 

— Mo?-t D' Arthur : Tennyson. 

And the roar and clash and speed of zvarriors and their 
chariots and weapons in this : 

nor stood at gaze 

The adverse legions, nor less hideous joined 
The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose 
And clamor, such as heard in heaven till now 
Was never ; arms on armor clashing bray'd 
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels 
Of brazen cnariots raged ; dire was the noise 
Of conflict ; overhead the dismal hiss 
Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew, 
And flying vaulted either host with fire. 

— Paradise lost, 6 : Milton. 

And the smooth water, lapping the body of the swim- 
mer in this: x 

And softlier swimming with raised head 
Feels the full flower of morning shed, 
And fluent sunrise round him rolled, 
That laps and laves his body bold 
"With fluctuant heaven in water's stead, 
And urgent through the growing gold 
Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red. 

— Epilogue : Swinburne, 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF FETTER-SOUNDS. 1 47 

And the cursing and shrieking, fluttering, crawling, and 
generally appalling character of this : 

— and then again 
With curses cast them down upon the dust, 
And gnashed their teeth and howled ; the wild birds shriek'd 
And terrified did flutter on the ground, 
And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 
Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
And twined themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing but stingless — they were slain for food ; 
And War which for a moment was no more, 
Did glut himself again ; — a meal was bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 
Gorging himself in gloom ; no love was left. 

— Darkness : Byron. 

And the climax of confusion, overthrow, and horror in 
almost every form, in this : 

The overthrown he raised, and as a herd 

Of goats or timorous flock together thronged 

Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursued 

With terror and with furies to the bounds 

And crystal wall of heaven, which opening wide 

Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed 

Into the wasteful deep ; the monstrous sight 

Struck them with borrow backward ; but far worse 

Urged them behind ; headlong themselves they threw 

Down from the verge of heaven, eternal wrath 

Burned after them to the bottomless pit. 

Hell heard th' insufferable noise, hell saw 

Heaven ruining from heaven, and would have fled 

Affrighted, but strict fate had cast too deep 

Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound. 

Nine days they fell ; confounded Chaos roared, 

And felt tenfold confusion in their fall 

Through his wild anarchy ; so huge a rout 

Incumber'd him with ruin ; hell at last 

Yawning received them whole, and on them closed, 

Hell their fit habitation, fraught with fire 

Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain. 

-— T. Z., 6: Milton. 



148 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

In certain poems, as in fact in certain of the quotations 
already given, it is difficult to determine how far the 
effects correspond to those of dramatic or of discoursive 
elocution. We cannot clearly distinguish in them between 
that which is and is not strictly imitative. One of the 
finest examples of this kind which we have, is furnished 
by Robert Browning's Holy-Cross-Day, purporting to 
represent the feelings of the Jews in Rome, when forced, 
as was formerly the custom on that day, to attend 
church, and listen to an annual Christian sermon. Notice 
the concentrated spite and scorn represented in the quali- 
ties — mainly guttural and aspirate — of most of the sounds 
used. Only a part of the poem can be quoted ; but the 
rest of it is almost equally effective : 

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, 
Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, 
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, 
Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve. 
Hist ! square shoulders, settle your thumbs 
And buzz for the bishop — here he comes. 

****** 

Aaron 's asleep — shove hip to haunch, 

Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch. 

Look at the purse, with the tassel and knob, 

And the gown with the angel and thingumbob. 

What 's he at, quotha ? — reading his text. 

Now you 've his courtesy — and what comes next ? 

sjc ifi sjc !$c j{c jfC 

Give your first groan — compunction 's at work ; 

And soft, from a Jew you mount to a Turk ! 

Lo, Micah, — the self-same beard on chin 

He was four times already converted in. 

Here 's a knife, clip quick — it 's a sign of grace — 

Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. 

****** 
Groan all together, now, whee-hee-hee ! 
It 's a work, it 's a work, ah, woe is me ! 



IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 1 49 

It began when a herd of us, picked and placed, 
Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist ; 
Jew-brutes, with sweat and blood well spent 
To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 

It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, 

Yelled, pricked us out to this church, like hounds. 

It got to a pitch when the hand indeed 

Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed. 

And it overflows, when, to even the odd, 

Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God. 

— Holy-Cross-Day : R. Browning. 

In the following, too, we have similar effects, partly- 
imitative and partly not. In the last two lines of each 
stanza, calling for the echo, we hear the resonant poetic 
orotund. Aside from these, the poem begins in the first 
stanza with the hush of the aspirate : 

The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 

And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
Blow, bugle ; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

Then we have mainly the thin, clear quality of the pure 
tone : 

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ; 
O sweet and far, from cliff and scar, 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
Blow, bugle ; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

And, lastly, the deeper feeling indicated by the orotund : 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river ; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 

And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 

— The Bugle, from the Princess : Tennyson. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 

Verse in which Attention to Sound prevents Representation of Thought — 
Violating Laws of Natural Expression or Grammatical Construction — 
Excellences exaggerated, the Source of these Faults — Insertion of 
Words, Pleonasm, Superfluity ; Transposition of Words, Inversion, 
Hyperbaton, tending to Obscurity — Style of the Age of Dryden — 
Alteration of Words in Accent ; or by Aphseresis, Front-Cut ; Syncope, 
Mid-Cut ; or Apocope, End-Cut — All these often show Slovenly Work- 
manship. 

T'HE theory underlying all that has been said thus far 
is, that poetry is an artistic development of lan- 
guage ; its versification, of the pauses of natural breathing ; 
its rhythm and tune, of the accents and inflections of ordi- 
nary conversation ; and the significance in its sounds, of 
ejaculatory and imitative methods actuating the very earli- 
est efforts of our race at verbal expression. The inference 
suggested has been that these effects produced by sound 
are legitimate in poetry, because, like language, and as a 
part of it, and far more significantly than some forms of 
it, they represent thought. This inference necessarily 
carries with it another, which it seems important to em- 
phasize before we leave this part of our subject. It is 
this, — that no effects produced by sound are legitimate in 
poetry, which fail in any degree to represent thought. If 
a man's first impression on entering a picture-gallery 
comes from a suggestion of paint, he may know that he 

150 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 15 1 

is not in the presence of the masters. So if his first im- 
pression on beginning to read verse comes from a sugges- 
tion of jingle, of sound or of form of any kind not con- 
nected in some most intimate way with an appeal to his 
higher aesthetic nature, he may be sure that the lines 
before him do not entitle their author to a high poetic 
rank. As I intend to show further on, all artistic poetry 
must produce the effects of form, but these include im- 
pressions recognized not only by the outer ear, but also 
by the inner mind. It is because of the exceeding diffi- 
culty of perfectly adjusting sound to thought and thought 
to sound, till, like perfectly attuned strings of a perfect in- 
strument, both strike together in all cases so as to form a 
single chord of a perfect harmony, that there are so few 
great poets. Before we pass on, therefore, let us notice 
a few of the more prominent ways in which writers, be- 
cause of their endeavor to conform their expressions to 
the requirements of mere versification, fail to make them 
conform to the requirements of language, fail to make 
them represent thought. 

In making this examination, we shall be compelled to 
take for our standard the language of ordinary intercourse. 
Poetic form necessitates a peculiar selection and arrange- 
ment of words and phrases. But if these violate the laws 
of natural expression or of grammatical construction, as 
exemplified in the language of prose, their meanings may 
be obscured entirely, or, if not so, will, at least, be con- 
veyed through forms that seem artificial. It was for 
these reasons that Wordsworth argued that there should 
be no difference between the language of poetry and of 
prose. In his own practice he sometimes carried out his 
theory only too faithfully ; but a truth underlay it, which 
always needs to be borne in mind. The problem in con- 



152 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

nection with all versification is, how to arrange words at 
once metrically and naturally. We all recognize that cer- 
tain poets are able to do this, and that this fact tends to 
increase their popularity. It is one of the chief charms 
of the poetry of Longfellow. Notice this for instance : 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time. 

— Psalm of Life. 

Lines like these seem very easy to write ; yet a book 
filled w T ith lines like these is very difficult to write. Few 
poets could arrange vowels and consonants so as to pro- 
duce such rhythmical and musical effects, without impair- 
ing, somewhat, the naturalness of their phraseology. Their 
departures from the latter, in order to satisfy the demands 
of the former, usually manifest themselves in one of five 
different ways, viz. : in the insertion, the transposition, the 
alteration, the omission, or the misuse of words. 

All these, as we shall find, are exaggerations of ten- 
dencies, which, kept in due subordination, or used to 
increase the effect of the thought and not of the sound 
alone, are excellences. The first fault mentioned, for 
instance, the insertion of words not needed for the sense, 
termed also pleonasm, or superfluity, grows out of a legiti- 
mate endeavor to enhance the jmpressiveness of what is 
presented. In the following, the very fact that the prayer 
is made the chief object of observation, makes it proper, 
not only, but desirable, to bring in an otherwise useless 
he, in order to represent rightly the order of the thought : 

His prayer he saith, this patient holy man. 

— Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 

So, in these lines, the author's putting the words wind 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 153 

and ship before the apparently superfluous pronouns, 
really adds as much to the thought as if he had written a 
separate sentence, calling our attention to these objects. 
In reading his words, we think first of the objects as exist- 
ing, and then of what they did : 

The wind it blew, and the ship it flew 
And it was " Hey for hame." 
***** 
And then the good ship, she lay to 

■a« t* "!• •!■ "F 

The skipper, he louted to the king. 

— The Earl 0' Quarterdeck : George MacDonald. 

Even actual repetition, in certain cases the worst form 
of pleonasm, is not always a defect. Who does not per- 
ceive how much of the impressiveness of these lines de- 
pends on the repetition of the word red ? 

The light that seemed a twinkling star 
Now blazed portentous, fierce and far, 
Dark-red the heaven above it glowed, 
Dark-red the sea beneath it flowed, 
Red rose the rocks on ocean's brim, 
In blood-red light her islets swim. 

— Lord of the Isles 5 : Scott. 

Or who could wish to have the second of these lines 
omitted ? 

They glide like phantoms into the wide hall ; 
Like phantoms, to the iron porch they glide, 

— Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 

But when the words producing the pleonasms merely 
fill out the form of the phraseology, and help the metre 
without amplifying or aiding the thought, then, like 
verbosity in prose, they weaken the passage in which 
they occur. Notice how the same thought is repeated in 
different lines of the following : 



154 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The spacious firmanent on high 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their great Original proclaim. 

— Hymn : Addison. 

Notice too the italicized words, evidently placed in this 
merely to make out the line and rhyme : 

Here he lives in state and bounty, 

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free ; 
Not a lord in all the country 

Is so great a lord as he. 

— Lord of Burleigh : Tennyson. 

To condemn fair and free for the reason given, may 
seem hypercritical ; but probably all will recognize that 
at least in the two following stanzas, there are many 
words used for no higher purpose than the one just 
mentioned. If so, what is it that they represent ? — the 
poet's thought ? — Why not rather his lack of thought ? 

Across a deep swift river, and the door 

Shut fast against him, did he see therein, 

Where through with trembling steps he passed before, 

That happy life above all lives to win, 

And round about him the sharp grass and thin 

Covered low mounds that here and there arose, 

For to his head his forerunners were close. 

Then with changed voice he moaned, and to his feet 

Slowly he gat, and 'twixt the tree-boles gray 

He 'gan to go, and tender Avords and sweet 

Were in his ears, the promise of a day 

When he should cast all troublous thoughts away. 

He stopped and turned his face unto the trees 

To hearken to the moaning of the breeze. 

— The Man Who A T ever Laughed Again : IV. Morris. 

The trajispositiou of words, called too inversion and 
hyperbaton, is also, like the insertion of them, a develop- 
ment of a tendency not only legitimate but essential to 






SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 155 

the highest excellence, wherever the thought can be 
thus more strikingly represented ; as, for instance, in the 
following, where the phraseology pictures the influence 
described in the order of its course from its beginning to 
its end : 

From, harmony, from heavenly harmony 

This universal frame began : 

From harmony to harmony 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in man. 

— Song for St. Cecilia s Day : Dry den. 

Or in the opening lines of the Paradise Lost, in which 
Milton, following the examples of Homer and Virgil and 
Dante in their great epics, transposes the clauses of the 
introductory sentence so that the thought which is to 
form the theme of the poem, and to which he wishes to 
attract the reader's first attention, shall be read first : 

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
Sing heavenly Muse. 

— Paradise lost, I. 

Keats opens his Hyperion in a similar way : 

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, 
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, 
Sat gray-eyed Saturn, quiet as a stone. 

And we all can recall the arrangement for analogous 
reasons of Shakespeare's description of the death of 
Caesar. 

Then burst his mighty heart. 

— yulius Cccsar, iii., 2. 

But transposition of the words for the sake of the 
thoughts in them is one thing, and for the sake of the 
sounds in them, is another. In the latter case, it may 



156 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

become a very serious fault, rendering the phraseology 
not only obscure but artificial. The following, for in 
stance, is obscure : 

" But reason thus : ' If we sank low, 
If the lost garden we forego, 
Each in his day, nor ever know 

But in our poet-souls its face ; 
Yet we may rise until we reach 
A height untold of in its speech — 
A lesson that it could not teach 

Learn in this darker dwelling-place.' 

" And reason on ; ' We take the spoil ; 
Loss made us poets and the soil 
Taught us great patience in our toil, 

And life is kin to God through death. 
Christ was not one with us but so, 
And if bereft of Him we go ; 
Dearer the heavenly mansions grow, 
His home, to man that wandereth.' " 

— Scholar and Carpenter ; yean Ingelow. 

The following, illustrating the same fault, is a good ex- 
ample of the artificial, stilted, heroic couplet, which was 
the fashion in the times when it was written. It was 
against this style that Wordsworth was arguing when he 
asserted that poetic language from Pope's Translation of 
Homer to Darwin's Temple of Nature could " claim to be 
poetic for no better reason than that it would be intolera- 
ble in conversation or in prose." x 

For while he mischief means to all mankind, 
Himself alone the ill effects does find ; 
And so like witches justly suffers shame, 
Whose harmless malice is so much the same. 
False are his words, affected is his wit ; 
So often he does aim, so seldom hit ; 
To every face he cringes while he speaks, 
But when the back is turned the head he breaks. 

— Essay upon Satire ; Dry den. 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. I 57 

The chief characteristic of this style is evidently a de- 
termination to produce rhyme and a sort of metrical 
balance in the lines, no matter how unnatural the effects 
may seem, as compared with the language of prose. 
What is remarkable, too, is that, with all this preponder- 
ating devotion to the supposed requirements of form, 
there appears to be, both in Pope and Dryden, a marked 
absence of any desire to produce the finer qualities of 
sound, like those of assonance, phonetic syzygy and gra- 
dation, which make poetry really musical. With all 
their transpositions, they never succeeded in producing the 
purely melodious effects of Tennyson and Longfellow. 

By the alteration of words is meant either the changing 
of their conventional accents, or the adding to them or 
taking from them of letters or syllables. In some cases, 
these changes may augment the effect of the thought. 
On account of their real or supposed resemblance to 
archaic, dialectic, or colloquial uses of language, and for 
the very reason that the words are not in the highest 
sense elegant, they emphasize the fact that the style is 
natural for the circumstances ; and the very quaintness of 
it, like the rustic air and dress of an otherwise pretty 
maiden, adds to its attractiveness. Thus Thomas Chat- 
terton, in Bristowe Tragedy, in connection with many 
changes in spelling which need not be noted here, alters 
parts, crows, spectacle, and noble ; e. g. : 

The bloody axe his body fair 

Into four parties cut ; 
And every part and eke his head, 

Upon a pole was put. 

One part did rot on Kynwulft hill, 

One on the minster tower, 
And one from off the castle gate, 

The crowen did devour ; 



158 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The other an St. Powle's good gate, 

A dreary spectacel ; 
Its head was placed on the high cross, 

In high street most nobel. 

As we should expect from a dialect writer, the poems 
of Burns are full of examples of this. 

For a' that and a' that, 

Their tinsel show and a' that, 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a' that. 

— Is there for honest Poverty. 

Heard ye o* the tree o' France, 
I watna what 's the name o' 't. 

— Tree of Liberty. 

And Shakespear, in this single sentence, shortens one 
word and lengthens another. 

I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun. 

— Macbeth, v., 5. 

Notwithstanding cases in which these alterations are 
appropriate, it is easy to see. that the tendency causing 
them may be carried too far. For every legitimate effect 
produced by them, there are scores of instances in which 
nothing better can be said of them than that they repre- 
sent slovenly workmanship. This is true sometimes of 
forms so familiar to us that the altered words seem 
scarcely to be altered at all ; as, v for instance, in cases of 
apJicercsis ox front-cut, like 7 7/, he 's, 7 is, 'neath, 'tween; 
of syncope or mid-cut, like o'er, ecu, eer; and of apocope 
or end-cut, like o\ wi\ and i . Whatever may be thought 
of these cases, however, there is no doubt about the 
effects of less familiar changes. Notice the following : 

But peaceful was the night 
Wherein the Trince of Light 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 1 59 

His reign of peace upon the earth began ; 

The winds with wonder whist 

Smoothly the waters kist, 
"Whispering new joys to the mild ocean. 

— Hymn on the Nativity : Milton. 

I joyless view thy rays adorn 
The faintly marked distant hill. 

— Lament : Burns. 

And at his side by that same tide 
Came bar and beam also. 

— Winstanlys : Jean Ingelow. 

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 

— On Shakespear : Milton. 

Shall my foolish heart be pined 
'Cause I see a woman kind ; 
Or a well disposed nature 
Joined with a lovely feature ? 

— The Manly Heart : G. Wither. 

A shield that gives delight 
Even to the enemies' sight, 
Then when they're sure to lose the combat by 't. 

— To Mr. Hobbes : Cowley. 

Slowly he gat and 'twixt the tree-boles gray 

He 'gan to go. 

— The Man Who Never Laughed Again : Wm. Mortis. 

I stand 'mazed in the moonlight. 

— The Unbeloved : Massey. 

Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are 'ware of a sound. 

— A Rhapsody of Life 's Progress : Mrs. Browning. 

O perfect love that 'dureth long. 

— Afternoon at a Parsonage : Jean Ingelow. 

And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties. 

— Divided : Jean Ingelow. 

The fact that some of these latter words were once 
used in English without prefixes, does not excuse these 



i6o 



POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



elisions. Most readers feel that this had nothing to do 
with their appearance in the particular places where we 
find them, and that they were used here solely because 
their writers did not exercise the skill needed in order to 
construct their lines so as to contain words like amazed, 
aware, endnretli, and complaineth. 

If nothing else can show us the inappropriateness of 
these changes in serious poetry, the way in which they are 
used for comic effects should do it ; for example : 

Stick close to your desks, and never go to sea, 
And you all may be rulers of the queen's navee. 

— Pinafore : Gilbert. 

I du believe in prayer an' praise 

To him — that hez the grantin' 
O' jobs ; in every thin' thet pays ; 

But most of all in cantin' ; 
This doth my cup with marcies fill, 

That lays all thought o' sin to rest ; 
I don't believe in princerple, 

But, O ! I du in interest. 

— Bigelow Papers : Lowell. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND CONTINUED. 

Omission of Words or Ellipsis indicating Crudeness — Leading to Obscurity 
because Meanings are conveyed by Phrases as well as by Words — 
Misuse of Words, Enallage — Poetic Sounds are Artistic in the Degree 
in which they really represent Thought and Feeling. 

n HE alteration of words leads to results far less seri- 
ous than the omission of them, which is the fault 
that we have next to consider ; for while the former 
makes the style less natural, and, so far as art is to be 
judged by the standards of nature, less artistic, the latter 
makes it less useful, at times, indeed, well-nigh unintel- 
ligible. Omission or ellipsis is an exaggeration of terse- 
ness in style, which is often a great excellence. In all 
kinds of writing, but especially in that appealing to the 
imagination, it is a fault to express too much. Those to 
whom poetry is naturally addressed derive their main 
satisfaction and therefore interest, from that which in- 
fluences them in the way of suggestion, leaving their 
fancies free to range where and as they will. Notice in 
the following how much the ellipses — and there are many 
of them — add to the vivaciousness of the effect, and at 
the same time how little they detract from its clearness. 

Coriolanus . — Hear'st thou, Mars ? 

Aufidius. — Name not the god, thou boy of tears — 

Coriolanus . — Ha ! 

Aufidizis, — No more. 

161 



1 62 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Coriolanus, — Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart 

Too great for what contains it. Boy ! — slave ! — 

Pardon me lords, 't is the first time that ever 

I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords, 

Must give this cur the lie . 

Cut me to pieces, Volsces ; men and lads, 

Stain all your edges on me ! — Boy ! False houna, 

If you have writ your annals true, 't is there 

That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 

Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli : 

Alone I did it — Boy ! 

— Coriolanus v., 6: Shakespear, 

Beside its embers, red and clear, 

Basked, in his plaid, a mountaineer ; 

And up he sprung with sword in hand, — 

" Thy name and purpose ! Saxon, stand ! " 

" A stranger." — " What dost thou require ?" 

" Rest and a guide, and food and fire. 

My life 's beset, my path is lost, 

The gale has chilled my limbs with frost." 

" Art thou a friend to Roderic?" — " No." — 

" Thou darest not call thyself a foe ? " 

" I dare ! to him and all the band 

He brings to aid his murderous hand." — 

" Bold words ! — but, though the beast of game 

The privilege of chase may claim, 

Though space and law the stag we lend, 

Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 

Who ever recked, where, how, or when, 

The prowling fox was trapped or slain ? 

Thus, treacherous scouts — yet sure they lie, 

Who say thou comest a secret spy ! " 

— Lady of the Lake, 4 : Scott. 

In using ellipses, however, there is always danger, as is 
suggested here in the last line but one, that the poet, in 
trying not to express his thoughts too fully, will fail to 
express them adequately, especially when he is beset by 
the additional temptation of omitting certain of his words 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 1 63 

in order to make his phraseology fit his metres. If he 
yields to this temptation, his style will manifest, if nothing 
worse, a crudeness and lack of skill inconsistent with the 
best artistic effects. Here are instances of this, in which 
the article is omitted : 

As frozen drop of wintry dew. 

— lady of the Lake, 5 : Scott. 

The near approach of dreaded foe. 

— Idem. 
While Porphyro upon her face doth look, 
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone 
Who keepeth clos'd a wondrous riddle-book, 
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook. 

— Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 

Here a pronoun is omitted : 

No foot Fitz-James in stirrup stayed. 

— Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 
Jumped from the wreck upon the reef to catch 
The hands that strained to reach (them) but tumbled back. 

— Wreck of Grace of Sunderland : yean Ingeloiv. 

Though mixed with most unhallowed leven, 
That proved to those who foolishly partook (of it) 
Eternal bitterness. 

— Course of Time, 2 : Pollock. 

Here a preposition and article : 

Right hand, they leave thy cliffs. 

— Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 

Here a preposition : 

Made to look me and light me to heaven. 

— A Poor Mans Wife : Massey. 

Here verbs are omitted : the whole stanza is quoted : 
No grasping at love, gaining a share 

0' the sole spark from God's life at strife 
With death, so, sure of range above 

The limits here ? For us and love, 
Failure ; but, when God fails, despair. 

- — Le Byron de nos yours : R. Browning. 



164 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

This stanza shows the worst feature in these omissions, — 
their tendency to obscurity. In conventional language 
we derive ideas not only from words but from phrases ; 
and we must hear the phrase as a whole, or its words may 
not only fail to convey clearly their intended meaning 
but may misrepresent it. The phrase a girl of age, for 
instance, used in the next quotation, means a girl who 
has arrived at her majority, and not at all the same as a 
girl of an age, which, presumably, is what the poet in- 
tended to say. So the phrases in part, under way, by way, 
— and a like truth might be affirmed of hundreds of 
others, — do not mean the same as in the part, under the 
way, or by the way. Hence we see that the omission of 
even an occasional article, apparently the least important 
of our words, may make a most important difference in the 
ideas communicated. Let us examine, now, another pas- 
sage from that great master of the ellipsis, Robert Brown- 
ing, and notice, again, how he drifts into obscurity, and this, 
too, where there is no occasion for it in the sense, nor 
gain from it in the effect. In order to express fully the 
meaning of the following lines, according to the methods 
of ordinary prose, one would be obliged to supply, of 
words that are omitted, seven pronouns, three articles, 
two prepositions, one adverb, two conjunctions, one factor 
of a comparison, three auxiliary and four principal verbs, 
as well as to change the mood and tense of another verb, 
and to transpose many of the words and phrases : 

So I said and did 
Simply. As simply followed, not at first 
But with the outbreak of misfortune, still 
One comment on the saying and doing — what ? 
No blush at the avowal you dared buy 
A girl of age beseems your granddaughter, 
Like ox or ass ? 
— The Ring and the Book ; Count Guido : R. Browning. 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 1 65 

Here is what this means, expressed in ordinary lan- 
guage : 

So I said, and did 
Simply. As simply as I did it, there followed, 
Not at first but with the outbreak of the misfortune, still 
One comment on the saying and doing of it, which was — 

What does this mean ? 
Do you show no blush at the avowal that you dared to buy 
Like an ox or ass, — 
A girl of an age that might beseem your granddaughter ? 

Of course it would not be necessary actually to insert 
all these words into this passage, to make plain prose 
of it. But they would all have to be understood, as gram- 
marians express it. That is to say, in order to get at the 
meaning of Browning's forty-six words, it would be nec- 
essary for the reader to supply twenty-two words more. 
We all believe that poetry should appeal to the imagina- 
tion. But is not this rather over-doing the appeal ? Does 
it not involve too much of a stretch of the imagination 
for ordinary mortals ? Is it a wonder, therefore, that 
some fail to catch all of this poet's meanings ? Is it their 
fault or his that he feels impelled to write : 

Well, British public, ye who like me not, 

(God love you) and will have your proper laugh 

At the dark question, laugh it ! I laugh first. 

— The Ring and the Book, Introduction. 

The misuse of words is the last of the faults that we 
have to consider in this connection ; and it is the most 
objectionable, because while the others misrepresent the 
thought indirectly, this does so directly. Nevertheless, 
it, too, springs from the exaggeration of a tendency which, 
kept within bounds, may enhance the effect of the 
thought. It appears in its mildest form when by enal- 
? , as it is called, one part of speech or one modifica- 



1 66 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

tion of a part of speech, like its number, mood, or tense, is 
used for another. Probably all of us can recall cases in 
which the thought to be expressed is made much more 
graphic and therefore distinct in its appeal to the mind 
through the use of this figure. Here, for example, a noun 
is used for a verb : 

I '11 queen it no inch further, 
But milk my ewes and weep. 

— Winter's Tale, iv. , 3 : Shakespear. 

Here an adjective for a verb : 

Be he ne'er so vile, 
This day shall gentle his condition. 

— Henry V., iv., 3 : Idem. 



Here adverbs for nouns : 

Full of all the tender pathos 
Of the Here and the Hereafter. 

— Song of Hiawatha : longfellow. 

Here a preposition for an adjective : 

I will fight 
Against my canker'd country with the spleen 
Of all the under fiends. 

— Coriolanus, iv., 5 : Shakespear. 

Here a preposition for a noun : 

Yet long'st, — 
But in a fainter kind : — O not like me, 
For mine 's beyond beyond. 

— Cymbeline, iii., 2 : Idem. 

Here one number for another : 

And see the lovely ladies gay, 
Step on in velvet gown. 

— Winstanley : Jean Ingelow. 

Here an intransitive for a transitive verb : 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 1 67 

It yearns me not if men my garments wear. 

— Henry V., iv. , 3 : Shakespear. 

And here one tense for another, by what is termed 
metastasis, and in this particular use of it, the historical 
present. 

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, 
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart 
Made purple riot ; then doth he propose 
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start. 

— Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 

The occasional use of these methods, however, in order 
to make the representation of the ideas more graphic, 
scarcely justifies that kind of poetic license which violates 
the laws of grammar and of lexicography, merely for the 
sake of form. Notice a few examples of this : 

Sudden his steed his leader rein'd. 

— Lady of the Lake, 5 : Scott. 

Who instant to his stirrup sprung. 

— Idem. 

You are one of many, the old Mayor said, 
That on the rock complain [for of\ 

— Winstanley : yean Ingelow. 

More ruddier too than is the rose 
Within her lovely face. 

— The Portrait : Hey wood. 

And there was naught of strange beside. 

— High Tide : Jea?i Ingelow. 

I fell flooded with a Dark 
In the silence of a swoon. 

— Bertha in the Lane : Mrs. Browning. 

Do you know our voices 

Chanting down the Golden ? 

— Drama of Exile : Idem. 

The worst thing that can be said of some of these, per- 



1 68 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

haps, is that they sound a little like slang. Here there is 
an ungrammatical arrangement of tenses : 

At last surrounds their sight 
A globe of circular light 

That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed ; 
The helmed Cherubim, 
And sworded Seraphim, 

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed. 

— Hymn on the Nativity : Milton. 

Graver instances of this fault occur, however, where, 
in order to produce sounds supposed to be desirable, 
words are used with little reference to their meanings, cal- 
culated, therefore, if interpreted literally, to convey ideas 
absurd or false. In this stanza, for instance, few can fail 
to suspect that the poet uses the word countenance be- 
cause it alliterates with decorum, and contains a vowel- 
sound that goes well with decorum and wore ; that he 
uses ancient because it forms an assonance with raven, and 
also shorn and shaven, because the latter word rhymes 
with raven. That is to say, these words seem to be used, 
and the number of them might be multiplied even in this 
stanza, not because they are the best through which to 
express the sense, but on account of their sounds. 

Then this ebony bird, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no 

craven ; 
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore, 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore." 
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

— The Raven : Poe. 

Poe is given to such faults as these. Notice the in- 
correctness of words like fully and distinctly, as used in 
the following. 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 169 

Yet the ear it fully knows, 

By the twanging 

And the clanging 
How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells, 

In the jangling 

And the wrangling 
How the danger sinks and swells, 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, — 

Of the bells,— 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 

Bells, bells, bells,— 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells. 

— The Bells. 

The same fault is apparent in Swinburne, another 
great master of the music of verse, who occasionally 
allows the music to master him. Opening his Studies in 
Song, I turn to these stanzas. Am I to blame that, while 
reading them, I find myself instinctively asking : " Desire 
and require what? What are the daysprings of fire, and 
how are they beneath him? How can harps approve? 
What sort of an appearance could descend through dark 
ness to grace any thing? How does breath set free? 
And what possible connection can there be between most 
of the deeds detailed and the effects attributed to them? 
Of course a little reflection may enable me to make out 
the poet's meanings here. But they do not lie on the 
surface. His words do not clearly picture his thoughts. 
They are not distinctly representative. They are not in 
the highest sense, therefore, poetic. 

There are those too of mortals that love him, 

There are souls that desire and require, 
Be the glories of midnight above him 

Or beneath him the daysprings of fire : 
And their hearts are as harps that approve him, 

And praise him as chords of a lyre, 



1 70 FOE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

That were fain with their music to move him 
To meet their desire. 

To descend through the darkness to grace them 

Till darkness were lovelier than light : 
To encompass and grasp and embrace them 

Till their weakness were one with his might. 
With the strength of his wings to caress ihem, 

With the blast of his breath to set free, 
With the mouths of his thunders to bless them 

For sons of the sea. 

—By the North Sea. 

The same lack of an exact and, therefore, of a distinctly 
representative and graphic use of terms is apparent in 
words like frank, bounteous, and others too in this stanza, 
further on in the same poem ; and why did the poet ob- 
scure his meaning by using of and for in the third line ? 

Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, 

Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, 
Built of holy hands for holy pity, 

Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm. 
Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion, 

Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime, 
Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion, 

Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime. 

— Idem. 

It is not strange that one who has thoroughly at 
command the resources of the music of verse like Swin- 
burne, or of suggestive ellipses like Browning, or of pic- 
turesque details like Morris, should occasionally, in the 
heat and exuberance of his creative moods, push his 
peculiar excellence altogether beyond the limits of legiti- 
mate art ; but it is strange that the critics who make it 
their business to form cool and exact estimates of literary 
work, should so seldom have sufficient insight to detect, 
or courage to reveal, wherein lie the faults that injure the 



SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. \J\ 

style of each, and how they may be remedied. How can 
criticism be of any use except so far as in a kindly way it 
can aid in the perfecting of that on which it turns its 
scrutiny ? And yet it is doubtful whether, amid all the 
eulogy and abuse which have greeted all the works of 
Robert Browning, any one, in private or in print, has ever 
told him plainly what those faults are — all so easy to cor- 
rect, — but for which the man with the greatest poetic mind 
of the age would be — what now he is not — its greatest 
poet. And if criticism of this kind is needed by authors 
who have attained his rank, how much more by those who, 
with the imitative methods of inexperience, are always 
prone to copy unconsciously, and usually to exaggerate, 
the weak rather than the strong points of the masters! 
Many a young writer, doing this at that critical period of 
his life when a lack of stimulus and appreciation may 
wholly check one's career, has failed, notwithstanding 
great merits. All his ability in other directions has not 
compensated for his ignorance of the requirements of 
poetic technique. It was largely with a hope of aiding 
such, that this work was first conceived. 

The conclusions that have been reached thus far con- 
cur in serving to prove that poetry as an art must have 
form, the very sounds of the single and consecutive words 
of which must represent the phases and movements, 
physical, intellectual, or emotional, of which they are sup- 
posed to be significant ; and it has been shown that great 
poets like Shakespear, Spenser, and Milton are great 
masters of representative expression in this sense. It 
follows from these facts that no poet is artistically justified 
in producing effects of sound through any insertion, trans- 
position, alteration, omission, or other use of words, that 
by violating the laws of grammar or lexicography obscures 



172 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

the meaning. " Like the organs of seeing and hearing," 
says Veron, in his " ^Esthetics," " our intellectual powers 
are only able to expend a very limited amount of energy at 
one time. ... If we be called upon to expend three 
quarters of our mental energy in disentangling and inter- 
preting the symbols, it is obvious that we shall have but one 
quarter left for the appreciation of the ideas of the poet." 
This statement agrees not only with the most recent 
deductions of physiological aesthetics, but also with those 
of common-sense. The test of form in every case is its 
fitness to represent, at least clearly, if not, as it sometimes 
should, brilliantly, every line and color, every phase and 
movement, every fact and suggestion of the ideas to be 
expressed. If this test be borne in mind, there can still be 
plenty of poetic failures from lack of poetic ideas, but no 
failures from a mere lack of the very easily obtained 
knowledge of the rudimentary principles of poetic tech- 
nique. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MEANINGS OF WORDS AS DEVELOPED BY ASSOCIATION 
AND COMPARISON. 

Instinctive Ejaculatory Sounds, and Reflective Imitative Sounds, becoming 
words by Agreement, in Fulfilment of the Principle of Association or 
Comparison, can represent but a few Ideas — Other needed Words may 
be due to Agreement in using Arbitrary Symbols ; it is Philosophical 
to suppose them largely developed by Tendencies underlying the For- 
mation of Primitive Words — How these Tendencies lead to the Use of 
the same Word in Different Senses — In the case of Words whose 
Meanings depend on Association — How what refers to the Material 
comes to refer to the Immaterial — Words whose Meanings depend on 
Comparison — What refers to the Material is by Comparison used for the 
Immaterial — Great Varieties of Meanings are developed from the same 
Word by Continued Processes of Association and Comparison — A 
Knowledge of this fact, and its Results are Necessary to an Intelligent 
Use of Language. 

T N the former part of this work we have considered ejac- 
ulatory and imitative sounds and the influence of 
the methods of their formation and arrangement upon 
poetic form^ so far as sounds determine this. We have 
found that it is reasonable to suppose that by associating 
certain utterances with the circumstances under which 
they are made, or by comparing them with the sounds of 
objects to which they refer, men in primitive ages learn 
what the utterances mean, and, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, agree to accept them as representative of similar 
meanings whenever or wherever heard. How to pro- 
duce at will these representative sounds solves the first 



174 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

problem of all language. But it requires no proof to 
show that no large number of the objects that engage our 
thoughts can be represented either by their own peculiar 
ejaculations or by imitative sounds. For this reason it is 
held by some that perhaps the majority of our words are 
merely arbitrary symbols, by which they mean that agree- 
ment which is undoubtedly a chief factor in giving definite 
meanings to sounds is also a chief factor in giving us the 
sounds themselves. While there are reasons for this 
theory, it may be pushed too far, and hardly seems to 
accord with what we know of the action of the mind with 
reference to other analogous matters. It seems more 
philosophical to attribute the enlargement of the primi- 
tive vocabulary mainly to further developments of mental 
processes in some way analogous to those to which the 
formation of the very earliest words is attributable. 
Facts, too, so far as they are known, sustain this view. 

To show that this is so, let us recall for a moment the 
methods of forming a word from an ejaculatory or 
imitative sound. This will start us in the right place from 
which to observe how continuous operations of the same 
method necessarily lead to the formation from the same 
sound, or the same slightly modified, of a multiplicity 
of words. Attention was directed in the former part of 
this work to the fact that the organs of speech are so 
constructed that usually the earliest articulated sounds 
made by the babe are mama and papa; and that the 
earliest persons to whom they are addressed are the 
mother and father ; and that, for this reason, people 
speaking in scores of different languages have come to 
associate mama, which, as a rule, is uttered first, with an 
appeal to the mother ; and papa with an appeal to the 
father. In a similar way, but attributed to comparison 



SECONDARY MEANINGS OE V/ORDS. 1 75 

rather than association, it was said that imitative sounds 
become words. A man says whiz because the sound that 
he makes compares, at least sufficiently for his purpose, 
with one that he has heard ; and when he and others have 
uttered it many times, it comes, by common consent, to 
mean what it does, and nothing else. 

Now, with these facts in view, can we not perceive that, 
after a few words have been formed, the formation of 
others from them is inevitable? It is so, in the first place, 
because of the tendency of the mind to carry further in 
the same direction the same processes of association and 
comparison that have led to the formation of these 
earliest words ; and, in the second place, because of the 
mind's tendency to economize labor. After men have 
accumulated a stock of primitive words, and have begun 
to reflect upon them, and to perceive the relations which 
they sustain to other things, they seem to recognize, in 
some subtle way, that they can save themselves the 
trouble of originating new sounds by using the terms 
already in vogue in more than one sense. A word apply- 
ing to one thing can be made to apply to an altogether 
different thing, if only the two are similar in certain of 
their features or relations. If the principle connecting 
the two is merely one of association, if they are merely 
allied, then the new term is produced by a continuation of 
the process underlying the formation of words from ejacu- 
lations. If the principle connecting the two is one of 
comparison, if they are really alike, then the process 
continues that of forming words from imitative sounds. 

Very often the two are only associated. Thus, a man 
is named after his employment, a Baker, a Smith, George 
a husbandman, Edward a protector of property ; or after 
his country, York or Lancaster. Thus, a town or city is 



iy6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

named after a man, like Columbus or America. Thus, 
things very subtle in their nature are named after others 
easily apprehended. Take, for instance, one of the 
earliest terms used to indicate that in man, which, as 
immaterial, cannot be adequately represented by any 
thing ejaculatory or imitative. " When," says Max 
Miiller, " man wished for the first time to grasp and ex- 
press a distinction " (and it will be noticed that he could 
never have wished to do this until he had entirely 
passed the period of the formation of the very earliest 
words) " between the body and something else within him 
distinct from the body, an easy name that suggested itself 
was breath. The breath seemed something immaterial 
and almost invisible ; and it was clearly connected with 
the life that pervaded the body, for as soon as the breath 
ceased the life of the body became extinct. Hence the 
Greek name 4 W X J ], which originally meant breath, was 
chosen to express at first the principle of life as dis- 
tinguished from the decaying body, and afterwards the 
incorporeal, the immaterial, the undying, the undecaying, 
the immortal part of man, his soul, his mind, his self." 

There are other cases, however, in which the two things 
for which the same term is used may be compared ; and 
in these cases, as has been said, there is a process analo- 
gous to that of forming words by imitation. As in imi- 
tation, a sound produced by\the mouth is made to refer to 
an object producing a similar sound, because the two sounds 
are alike ; so here a term used for one conception is made 
to refer to another, because the two conceptions are alike. 
Trench's " Study of Words," contains a large number of 
exemplifications of this. Notice, for instance, the way in 
which the word kind is derived from the word kin. In 
olden times, all were supposed to be enemies, except 



SECONDARY MEANINGS OF WORDS. 1 77 

those belonging to the same tribe or of the same kin ; 
only these therefore were kind to each other. But after 
a while ail whose actions could be compared to those of 
kinned-men were called kind. Again, for centuries subse- 
quent to the time when Christianity had been accepted 
by the cities of the Roman Empire, the inhabitants of the 
villages, or the pagani as they were termed, remained 
heathen ; after a while all those who could be compared 
to the pagani, on account of their religious beliefs, were 
termed pagans. Later, in Europe the disciples of the 
great theologian Duns Scotus, were called Dunses. After 
a while all who might be compared with these, in that 
their views differed from those held ordinarily, were called 
dunces. 

In forming words by comparison, as by association, 
terms applicable literally only to material conceptions 
come to refer after a time to those that are immaterial. 
Take words, for instance, describing the operations of the 
mind. We say that a man's thoughts are pure, clear, 
mixed, muddled, or clouded, and that he expresses and im- 
presses them upon others ; but only to material things like 
water, wine, or the atmosphere, can the former class of 
terms be applied literally ; and only into or out of a mate- 
rial thing can another, and this only a material thing, be 
literally pressed. Evidently terms of this kind are used as 
a result of comparing the mental to the material pro- 
cess, to which in some regards it is analogous. Were it 
not possible to symbolize the one process in the other, it 
is obvious that many things which we desire to communi- 
cate, would remain forever unexpressed. We see, there- 
fore, how essential to the very existence of language is 
this power which enables us to figure or picture an object 
or operation through referring to something which, though 



178 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

like it in some respects, is wholly different from it in 
others ; as different from it as the paint and canvas of a 
portrait are from the flesh and blood of the person por- 
trayed. We see, too, how the element of representation, 
which is essential to all art, is a factor in the very consti- 
tution of language from which poetic art is developed. 
We see also how the means of representation are furnished 
mainly by the objects and operations of nature ; and this 
not only by those appealing to the ear, the sounds 
of which can be imitated, but also by those appealing to 
the eye, the appearance of which suggests words like 
express and impress. In fact, the uses to which the sights 
and sounds of nature are thus constantly put, make liter- 
ally true a statement like this of Wordsworth : 

I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of senseless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity. 

— Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey. 

Were it not for nature, where would be the music, the 
voice, the language, the symbolism, through which only 
thought can be represented ? 

It is superfluous to point out to those at all acquainted 
with this subject, how through continuing the kinds of 
comparisons that have been mentioned, one word may 
often come to have a large number of very different 
meanings. The noun stock, for instance, as Trench 
reminds us in his " Study of Words," is the old past par- 
ticiple of the verb to stick, and indicates any thing that is 
fixed in its character. Hence we speak of railway stock, 
family stock, gunstocks, stock in trade, live stock, stocks 
that ships are built on, etc. So from the word post, 
meaning placed, Ave get the terms, military post, official 



SECONDARY MEANINGS OF WORDS. 1 79 

post, posting a ledger and a letter, a post-office, post- 
haste, etc. 

Though all languages are largely composed of words, 
the meanings of which can be traced with comparative 
ease to causes similar to the ones just mentioned, these 
words are so familiar to us, we have become so accus- 
tomed to their conventional significance, that we seldom 
pause to inquire how they came to mean what they do. 
I can remember distinctly the moment when, as a boy, it 
flashed upon my mind that a term, having so obvious an 
origin as the Fourth of July, was not a grandiloquent 
word of many syllables, originated for the purpose of 
necessarily suggesting gunpowder and fireworks ; but 
merely a phrase indicative of the fourth day of the seventh 
month. A similar revelation is constantly awaiting the 
mind that makes a study of other words. Similar revela- 
tions, multiplied by almost the whole number of words 
employed, must flash light through all the hidden depths 
that underlie the surface forms of one's vernacular, before 
he can understand them, and use them with absolute ap- 
propriateness. Especially is this so in the case of the 
words with which we are now dealing, — the words formed 
as a result of comparison ; because these contain, far more 
decidedly than those derived from association, a represent- 
ative or picturesque — what grammarians term a figura^ 
tive — element. But before we go on to exemplify this 
statement, and in doing so, to trace out further than has 
yet been done how naturally the representative language of 
poetry is developed from ordinary language, let us con- 
sider the subject in another aspect. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MEANINGS OF PHRASES AS DETERMINED BY ASSOCIATION 
OR COMPARISON. 

Language, a Process in which Words and Ideas represented by them are 
used consecutively — How Words in Progression can represent Mental 
Processes — How Acts in Progression do this in Pantomime — How this 
is done when Words, as Symbols, are substituted for the Acts in Panto- 
mime — How Subject, Predicate, and Object are put together — Subject, 
Predicate, and Object of a Complete Sentence, are the Beginning, 
Middle, and End of a Complete Process, of which all the Parts of Speech 
are Logical Parts — Examination of Certain Sentences — How the Mean- 
ings of them, considered as Wholes, depend on the Principle of Associa- 
tion or of Comparison. 

A S was said, when treating of the representative nature 
of sounds, language is a form for thought, and 
thought implies mental activity, a process, a series of sen- 
sations and experiences, all of them exerting more or less 
influence upon each other. A single idea might be repre- 
sented in a single word, but a series of ideas necessitates 
a series of words. How, now, can these series of words 
represent, with any thing like accuracy, internal processes 
of the mind, together with the necessary relationships and 
interactions that must exist between their constituting 
elements ? Or, to begin at the right place, how can any 
series of external and material elements, even though they 
do represent a process, represent a process that takes place 
in thought? If we can come to ascertain this, it will be 



MEANINGS OF PHRASES. l8l 

easy for us to understand how, according to a similar 
analogy, series of words can do the same. 

Those of us who have been in countries with the lan- 
guages of which we were not familiar, have, perhaps, 
improved our powers of origination, as well as started 
original conceptions in the minds of those about us, 
through presenting our internal processes of thought to 
men who had not ears to heed our English, in the form of 
pantomime. What other resource could we have, when 
thirsty or sleepy or wishing to hire a hack or take a sail ? 
But suppose that we had been shut out from pantomime, 
and shut in to sound, how, according to the same analogy, 
could we have expressed our processes of thought through 
the latter medium ? Had we possessed the power of ren- 
dering intelligible to others our references to our internal 
sensations, as well as to external objects and operations, 
by the use of exclamations, imitative sounds, and words 
derived from them by association and comparison, — how 
could we have combined all these elements in such a way 
as to represent in sound a process of thought ? Is not 
the answer simple ? Instead of taking two objects and 
joining or separating them, could we not have taken two 
names for these objects, and joined or separated these? 
or, if we wished to make our meaning still more intelligi- 
ble, joined the names by putting between them an inter- 
vening exclamation expressive of assimilation, or separated 
them by putting there an expression of aversion ? Could 
we not thus have represented in words what circumstances 
had prevented us from representing in pantomime ? In- 
stead of emphatically flinging ourselves on the floor, or pa- 
thetically resting our heads upon our hands, when, tired out 
in the evening, we desired to show our wish to go to bed 
why might we not have exclaimed " I — bed," or " I — oh — 



1 82 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

bed " ? Is not this precisely what, though put in different 
forms, we have heard the foreigner do, a hundred times, 
perhaps, when trying to express in sound the thought 
which his ignorance of our language prevented him from 
expressing fully ? Is not this precisely the method through 
which every child begins the difficult process of conversa- 
tion — i. e., by placing two words together, which thus con- 
stitute a compound word ; or by uniting the two, one of 
which is used for the subject of a sentence and the other 
for its object, by a third, which serves the purpose of a 
predicate ? And it is well to notice, too, in this connec- 
tion, that, whether used by a foreigner or a child, the 
predicate is always the last essential factor of a perfect 
sentence to be used with accuracy. " I seen him," cried 
a street-boy under my window the other day ; " and I 
throw'd a stone at him." 

While on this subject, in order to show that the use of 
the exclamation for the verb in the illustration of a sen- 
tence just given, though fanciful, is not entirely out of 
analogy with what is really done in language, it may be 
interesting to recall what Max Miiller says of one of our 
most common grammatical forms — it is. He tells us that 
this sound can be traced back almost as far in language as 
we can go. The German says ist, the Roman est, the Slave 
yeste, the Greek esti, and the Hindoo asti. But asti is a 
compound of the pronoun ti and the verb as, the root of 
which signifies to breathe. Whatever breathes exists or 
is ; so that in the oldest language in which we find the 
verb, it seems to be only an expression representative of 
the fact, and, very probably, of the act of aspiration or 
breathing. 

But, to return from theory to fact, we have found how 
it is possible to put words together in such a way as to 



MEANINGS OF PHRASES. 1 83 

indicate a process. Indeed, whenever we put them to- 
gether in the right way, they necessarily do indicate this ; 
for in such cases we put together sentences, and sentences 
invariably represent, if not physical, at least mental, pro- 
cesses, the subject, as a rule, indicating the beginning of 
them, the predicate the continuation of them, and the 
object, if there be one, the end of them. In fact, all the 
different grammatical parts of speech and modifications of 
them, viewed in one light, are merely methods of repre- 
senting dependencies and relationships of different parts 
of whole processes, which, with more or less completeness, 
are represented by the sentences. 

That we may perceive this and, at the same time, the 
degree in which all the different factors of the phraseology 
may be made to augment the force of the figures used in 
single words, let us examine a few sentences. As we do 
so, we shall find it possible to class all combinations of 
words under two heads, corresponding to those under 
which we have already grouped single words. The first 
class includes those depending for their meaning upon the 
principle of association, and the second, those depending 
upon the principle of comparison. 

To get our bearings here, let us recall briefly that it 
has been said, with reference to the first class of words, 
that the times and circumstances under which a certain 
exclamatory sound like mama or papa is used, cause men, 
on account mainly of its associations, to accept it as a 
word, meaning what it does ; and that later, after a 
vocabulary has been partly formed, the same principle of 
association causes them to ally something for which they 
have a name with some other thing, and to use the same 
name for both, as when they call towns or implements 
after their founders or inventors. It has been said, again, 



1 84 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

with reference to the second class of words, that a certain 
sound proceding from an object which men perceive is 
imitated by their vocal organs, and, on account of the 
comparison between the two sounds, the one that they 
have produced is accepted as a name for that which 
originally produced it, as when cuckoo is adopted as a term 
of designation for a certain bird ; and that later, after a 
vocabulary has been partly formed, the same principle of 
comparison causes them to perceive that some conception 
for which they have a term, is like some other conception, 
and to apply the same term to it also, as when they use 
the word clear to refer both to the atmosphere and to the 
mind. 

In accordance with the analogy of these two methods 
of determining the meanings of words, we shall find that 
Ave determine also the meanings derived from the arrange- 
ments of them, i. e., either by the associations which, 
when combined in phrases and sentences, the words sug- 
gest, or by the comparisons which they embody. To 
illustrate this, suppose that one says : " Their cultivated 
conversation and attire interfered with the effects of their 
depravity." The sentence, so far as concerns its meaning, 
is perfectly intelligible, and this because we have learned 
to associate with each of the words used, cultivated, con- 
versation, attire, etc., a certain definite conception ; and 
this conception comes up before the mind the moment 
that we hear them. But now, suppose the same thought 
is expressed, as in this sentence of Goldsmith : " Their 
finery threw a veil over their grossness." In this latter 
case, neither the word finery, nor threw, nor veil, nor 
grossness, has precisely the meaning that we are accus- 
tomed to associate with it. We do not understand the 
sentence precisely, until we consider it as a whole, and 



MEANINGS OF PHRASES. 1 85 

then not until we consider that the whole expresses a 
comparison. In other words, the sentence means what it 
does, not mainly on account of the ordinary associations 
of its words, but on account of the comparison which it 
embodies. Take another pair of sentences which perhaps 
will illustrate this difference more clearly. Let one wish 
to express an unfortunate change in the character of a 
man hitherto honest. He may say that " His integrity is 
impaired by severe temptation " ; and in this case his 
meaning will be obvious, because men associate definite 
meanings with the words integrity, impaired, severe, and 
temptation. Instead of using this language, however, the 
man may select words indicating a comparison, and a 
series of comparisons. He may make a picture of his 
idea, representing the process of the change in character, 
by describing the process of an analogous change in 
nature. He may say : " His uprightness bends before 
some pressing blast." Notice how much more definitely 
we perceive the comparison, the picture, in uprightness 
than in integrity, in bends than in impaired, in pressing 
than in severe, in blast than in temptation. In this last 
sentence, we perceive at once, as in a picture, the charac- 
ter that stood straight up, the clouds that gathered, the 
storm that burst, and the ruin that ensued. The imma- 
terial process is represented literally in the material one, 
and only in connection with this latter have words like 
bends, pressing, and blast any relevancy. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

I 

POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS. 

Words depending for their Meanings on Association not necessarily Prosaic; 
nor those depending on Comparison necessarily Poetic — The Latter 
necessitate Imagination to originate, and, at first, to interpret them, but 
after being used become Conventional — This the Natural Tendency 
of all Words — Poets can always cause Words to seem Poetic. First, by 
selecting those representing Poetic Associations — This applies to Con- 
ventional Words — Second, by arranging Words imaginatively so as to 
suggest New Comparisons or Pictures — Why English of Anglo-Saxon 
Origin is preferred by our Poets — Have Familiar Associations — 
Sounds fit Sense — Are used by us in Different Senses — Figures repre- 
sented in Compound Words Apparent — In General more Significant — 
Why the English Language is fitted to remain Poetic. 

TT is natural that some may suppose that the princi- 
ples unfolded in the last chapter would carry with 
them the inference that series of words and sentences 
like " Their cultivated conversation and attire interfered 
with the effects of their depravity," or " His integrity is 
impaired by severe temptation," the meanings of which, 
as has been said, are determined x by the associations which 
we have with the terms used, would be classed as prose ; 
and that series of words and sentences like " Their finery 
threw a veil over their grossness," and " His uprightness 
bends before some pressing blast," the meanings of which 
are determined by the comparisons embodied in the ex- 
pressions, would be classed as poetry. In fact, when men 
speak of poetic language, do they not almost invariably 



POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS. 1 87 

refer to language of the latter kind, i. e., to words and 
phrases full of comparisons and figures ? Let us weigh this 
question carefully and detect, if we can, just how much 
truth and how much error is in the idea underlying it. 

In contrasting the sentences quoted above, two things 
claim our notice ; first, that expressions of the compara- 
tive kind, like " His uprightness bends before some 
pressing blast," call forth a greater effort of the imagina- 
tion both to compose and to interpret them ; and second, 
that these expressions call forth a greater effort of the 
imagination when first produced or heard than afterwards. 
In fact, if often used to represent the same idea, there 
comes to be a time when any number of terms like up- 
rightiiess, pressing, bends, and blast suggest no pictures 
whatsoever, except to one in search of them. They be- 
come at last no more significant than words depending for 
their meanings on association ; and often less so. In 
reading them, we are conscious of no more than could be 
gained from unsuggestive arbitrary symbols. Even, 
therefore, though in the main poetic language were con- 
fined to these words embodying comparisons, this of itself 
would not suffice to keep the words in such a condition 
that men would recognize the pictures in them. 

When words pass thus from the language of imagination 
where they start, into that of mere conventionality, they 
move according to a natural tendency exemplified in 
every phase of intellectual development. The unfamiliar 
never can be understood by us till classified on the ground 
of likeness to some other thing that we have known 
before. The earliest name assigned to the unfamiliar 
object represents this fact. The Indian's " horse that 
breathes forth fire," the " iron horse," the " locomotive," — 
all, at first, present the mind with pictures. But after a 



1 88 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

little, men select and agree to use some single term for the 
object, and, when the term is uttered, it calls to mind this 
object and no other. In this way, words in every language 
are constantly becoming more exact in meaning, and not 
only so, but they are constantly accumulating. Different 
shades of meaning are perpetually assuming definite shape 
in forms of thought ; as, indeed, is needed where the 
thought of each succeeding age is constantly becoming 
more complex as well as comprehensive. Of course, as 
words become exact in meaning, they have less in them 
suggestive of a different meaning. So, as a language 
grows conventional and scientific, it loses much of its 
imaginative and poetic force. When men have arbitrary 
symbols to express precisely what they wish to say, their 
fancies do not search for others to suggest what, at best, 
can but vaguely picture it. We hear them speak of engines 
and of locomotives, not of "horses breathing fire." 

The question now arises : Amid circumstances like these 
must poetry succumb ? If not, in what way can the poet 
overcome them ? Certainly in one way only — by recog- 
nizing his conditions, and making the most of the material 
at his disposal. He must use a special poetic diction. In 
doing this two things are incumbent on him. The first is 
to choose from the mass of language words that have 
poetic associations. All our words convey definite mean- 
ings not only, but accompanying suggestions ; and some 
of these are very unpoetic. Particular sights or sounds in 
the material world, or concepts in the mind, are instantly 
represented to the imagination, as well as presented to 
the understanding, when these words are heard. For this 
reason, therefore, though they do not in themselves em- 
body comparisons, they are sufficiently representative, 
for a part, at least, of the purposes of poetry. 



POETIC AND UN POETIC WORDS. 1 89 

It is words like these, though not suggested in a like 
connection, that Grant Allen mentions in his " Physio- 
logical ^Esthetics," when, carrying out his theory that 
" the purpose of poetry" is " the production of massive 
pleasurable emotion," because it "depends for its effect 
upon the unbroken succession of beautiful ideas and 
images," he says that terms like violet, palfrey, and ruby, 
because suggesting what is more pleasing, are more poetic 
than terms like cabbage, donkey, and chalk ; and terms, in 
the sphere of light, like scarlet, crimson, pink, orange, 
golden, green, blue, azure, purple, and violet, are more poetic 
than gray, brown, dun, black, bay, and drab. So brilliant, 
sparkling, sheeny, polished, lustrous, luminous, twinkling, 
glancing, silvery, pearly, are more poetic, he says, than 
dull, dingy, rough, turbid ; and rounded, curling, grace fid, 
lithe, flowing, are more poetic than straight, stiff, awk- 
ward, and upright ; and, in the sphere of sound, terms like 
clear, ringing, silvery, musical, sweet, melodious, mellow, 
rich, low, are more poetic than shrill, hoarse, grating, 
harsh, loud, and croaking ; and, in the sphere of touch, 
terms like soft, waxen, fleecy, smooth, delicate, slender, are 
more poetic than hard, rough, harsh, tough, and coarse ; 
and, in the sphere of smell, terms like fragrant, sweet, per- 
fumed, scented, odorous, are more poetic than stench and 
stinking ; and, in the sphere of taste, terms like luscious, 
melti}ig, honeyed, sugared, are more poetic than bitter, sour, 
biting, acid, acrid ; and, in the sphere of organic sensations, 
terms like cool, fresJi, buoyant, warm, easy, pure, are more 
poetic than hot, close, zveary, cold, and chilly. 

Most of the words thus instanced, — only a small propor- 
tion of those in Mr. Allen's lists, — depend but little for 
their poetic or unpoetic effects, on any comparison sug- 
gested by their origin or expressed in the passage in 



I90 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

which they are placed. They depend for these mainly 
upon the ideas that they conventionally represent — ideas 
invariably associated with them, whenever they are heard. 
This fact is enough to show us that the distinction 
between poetry and prose lies deeper than can be de- 
termined solely by the etymological character of the 
phraseology. 

But there is a second thing incumbent on the poet in 
view of the present unpoetic tendencies of language. In 
using a special diction, he must choose from the mass of 
language words that are themselves aesthetic, — not only 
negatively, by excluding terms too scientific or colloquial, 
which, with material and mean associations, break the 
spell of the ideal and spiritual; but positively, by going 
back in imagination to the view-point of the child, and 
(either because arranging old words so as to reveal the 
pictures in them, or because originating new expressions 
of his own) by substituting for the commonplace that 
which is worthy of an art which should be graphic. 
Wordsworth did not exclude the unpoetic, disenchanting 
word when, in his otherwise beautiful poem, She was a 
Phantom of Delight, he wrote of his love : 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine. 

And Shelley did go back to the view-point of the child, 
when he wrote : 

And multitudes of dense, white, fleecy clouds 
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind. 

— Prometheus Unbound, ii., 1. 

Only a moment's thought will reveal to us that the 
principles just unfolded are closely related — in connection, 



A NGL 0- SA XON DERI VA TIVES. 1 9 1 

however, with one or two other considerations — to that 
preference which almost all English poets exhibit for 
words of native or Anglo-Saxon origin, as distinguished 
from those derived from foreign sources, especially from 
the Latin through the French. " Remuneration ? " says 
Shakespear's clown Costard 1 ; " O that 's the Latin Avord 
for three farthings." " Are you aware," says the author 2 of 
the "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton" to his heroine, 
" that, at a lecture Coleridge gave in the Royal Institu- 
tion in 1808, he solemnly thanked his Maker that he did 
not know a word of that frightful jargon, the French lan- 
guage ? " From the few contrasted expressions consid- 
ered a little while ago, we can understand what Coleridge 
with his fine poetic conceptions probably felt. Concealed, 
threw a veil over, — depravity, grossness, — integrity, upright- 
ness, — impaired, bends, — severe, pressing, — and others might 
be added to the list, intelligence, understanding, — defer, 
put off, — divest, strip off, — retire, go to bed. No one can 
fail to see how much more capacity for producing repre- 
sentative effects there is in the latter words of these pairs 
than in the former. This is so for several reasons. To 
begin with, as Herbert Spencer suggests in his " Essay 
on Style," the words of Anglo-Saxon origin include most 
of those used in our youth, in connection with which, 
therefore, through long familiarity with them, we have 
the most definite possible associations ; whenever we hear 
them, therefore, they seem preeminently representative. 

Then, too, we hear in the Anglo-Saxon derivatives, to 
a greater extent than in the foreign, the sounds which, 
when originally uttered, were meant to be significant of 
their sense. In fact, almost all the words instanced in 
another place as having sounds of this kind were Anglo- 

1 Love s Labor Lost, iii., 1. 2 William Black. 



192 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Saxon. On the contrary, almost all our words derived 
from the Latin through the French have suffered a radi- 
cal change in sound, both in the French language and in 
our own. Therefore their sounds, if ever significant of 
their meanings, can scarcely be expected to be so now. 

Again, we know, as a rule, the history of our Anglo- 
Saxon terms, inasmuch as we still use them in their dif- 
ferent meanings and applications, as developed by associ- 
ation and comparison. But foreign words are usually 
imported into our language in order to designate some 
single definite conception, and often one very different 
from that which they designated originally. All of us, 
for instance, can see the different meanings of words like 
way and fair and the connections between them ; but to 
most of us words like dunce and paga?is, from the Latin 
Duns and pagani, have only the effects of arbitrary symbols. 

One other reason applies to compound words. If the 
different terms put together in these exist and are in pres- 
ent use in our own language, as is the case with most of 
our native compounds, then each part of the compound 
conveys a distinct idea of its separate meaning; so 
that we clearly perceive in the word its different fac- 
tors. For instance, the terms uprightness, overlook, under- 
writer, under -standing, pastime, all summon before the 
mind both of the ideas which together make up the word. 
We recognize, at once, whatever comparison or picture it 
represents. In compound words of entirely foreign ori- 
gin, on the contrary, it is almost invariably the case that, 
at least, one of the factors does not exist at present in our 
own tongue. Integrity meant a picture to the Roman. 
But none of us use the word from which its chief factor is 
derived. So we fail to see the picture. Nor do we use 
either factor of the words depravity, defer, retire. 



A NGL 0- SA XON DERI VA TIVES. 1 9 3 

For reasons like these our words of Anglo-Saxon origin 
are more representative of their sense, and hence more 
forcible and expressive, than our words of foreign extrac- 
tion, even if, at times, less elegant and more homely. 
Homeliness, however, is not a wholly unpleasant charac- 
teristic. " Who can enjoy a chat with a man," says a 
writer in one of the old numbers of the London Saturday 
Reviezv, " who always talks of women as females, and of a 
man as an individual ; with whom things are never like, 
but similar ; who never begins a thing, but commences it ; 
who does not choose, but elects ; who does not help, but 
facilitates ; nor buy, but always purchases ; who calls a 
beggar a mendicant ; with whom a servant is always a 
domestic when he is not a menial ; who calls a house a resi- 
dence, in which he does not live but resides ; with whom a 
place is always a locality, and things do not happen but 
transpire. The little girl working in the brick-fields, who 
told the commissioners, ' We swills the spottles off us 
faces before we has us dinners,' made them understand 
exactly the degree of cleansing she went through. If the 
time ever comes when she will say instead, ' We perform 
our ablutions before we dine,' more will be left to guess- 
work. The cook-maid of the future may count up the 
dishes she has to wash, and expatiate on the toil of her 
task in pedantic English ; but when the char-woman of 
the present day says : ' He fouled a matter o' six plates/ 
there is a protest against luxury in the use of a verb that 
conveys more than the simple numbers would do if twice 
told." 

The lack of representative power in the majority of 
words introduced from foreign languages, is probably 
one reason why, from Homer to Shakespear, poets have 
ranked highest who have written at an early stage in the 



194 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

history of a nation's language, before it has become cor- 
rupted by the introduction of foreign words and phrases. 
It may furnish one reason, too, why Dante, near the end 
of his life, thought fit to deliver lectures to the people 
of Ravenna upon the use of their vernacular. It may ex- 
plain why Goethe, at the beginning of his career, turned 
his back upon the fashionable French language, and gave 
himself to the cultivation of the neglected tongue of his 
fatherland. At any rate, it does explain, as has been said 
before, why most of the great poets of England, from 
Chaucer to Tennyson, have been distinguished among 
other things for their predominating use of words derived 
from the Anglo-Saxon. These words still exist in our 
tongue ; and fortunately, notwithstanding the natural ten- 
dency of all words to grow less poetic, they have lost little 
of their original significance and force ; because side by 
side with them there exist other words, almost synony- 
mous, derived mainly from Latin sources. The fact that 
these latter by common consent are used almost exclu- 
sively for the technical purposes of science, philosophy, 
and trade, thus leaving the Anglo-Saxon terms to the 
slighter changes and deteriorations that take place in 
literature, may furnish the best reason that we have for 
hoping that this composite language of ours will continue 
to be for centuries in the future, as it has been in the 
past, perfectly fitted to give form to the grandest poetry. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PLAIN AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

Two Kinds of Language used in Poetry, that depending for its Meaning on 
Association and that depending on Comparison — Distinction between 
the Term Figurative Language, as applied to Poetry and as used in 
ordinary Rhetoric — Figures of Rhetoric containing no Representative 
Pictures : Interjection, Interrogation, Apostrophe, Vision, Apophasis, 
Irony, Antithesis, Climax — Figures of Rhetoric necessitating Represen- 
tative Language : Onomatopoeia, Metonomy, Synecdoche, Trope, 
Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole, Allegory — Laws to be observed, and 
Faults to be avoided, in using Similes and Metaphors — When Plain 
Language should be used — And when Figurative. 

T7 ROM the facts noticed in the last chapter, we may infer 
that two kinds of language — whether we apply this 
term to single words or to consecutive ones — can be 
used in poetry : that which depends for its meaning upon 
the associations which the words suggest, and that which 
depends upon the comparisons which they embody. The 
former corresponds in most of its features, but not in all 
of them, to what is ordinarily called plain language, and 
its words have a tendency to appeal to us like arbitrary 
symbols. The latter corresponds in a similar way to what 
is called figurative language, and its words have a tendency 
to appeal to us like pictures. 

A distinction needs to be drawn, however, between the 
term figurative language as it is generally applied to poetic 
phraseology, and the same term as used in rhetoric. Many 
of the so-called " figures of rhetoric " scarcely necessitate 

195 



I96 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

using any actual figure at all, in the sense of represent- 
ing one phase or process through mentioning another to 
which it is compared. They are little more than modifica- 
tions of plain language. The moment we recall some of 
them, this fact will be apparent. Take, for instance, what is 
termed Interjection, the using of an interjection for a verb, 
as in, " Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness " ; or take 
Interrogation, the using of a question for a direct state- 
ment, as in, " Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but 
ministers by whom ye believed ? " or take Apostrophe, the 
turning of a statement into an invocation, as in, " O death, 
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" or 
take Vision or Imagery, the representation of what is in 
the past through the use of the historical present, as in 
" Caesar leaves Gaul, crosses the Rubicon, and enters 
Italy," instead of " left Gaul," etc. ; or take Apophasis, 
Para/ipsis, or Omission, the pretended suppression of what 
one is all the time mentioning, as in, " I say nothing of 
the notorious profligacy of his character, nothing of 
the reckless extravagance with which he has wasted an 
ample fortune " ; or take Irony, the statement of a fact or 
idea through using words which literally interpreted mean 
the opposite of what is intended, as in, " Oh yes, you are 
honest, you are, your actions show it ! " or take Antithesis, 
the placing of opposite thoughts in juxtaposition so as to 
heighten the effect of each by x contrast, as in, " Though 
grave yet trifling, zealous yet untrue " ; or take Climax, 
the arrangement of a series of words, clauses or sentences 
in such a way that each, to the end of the passage, is of 
greater importance than the one preceding it, as in, " He 
not only spared his enemies, but continued them in em- 
ployment ; not only continued them in employment, but 
advanced them " ; — all these "figures of rhetoric " can be 






FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 1 97 

used, as will be recognized, without any very apparent 
exercise of the principle of representation. 

There are others, however, of which this is not true. 
One of these, Onomatopoeia, under the head of imitative 
sounds, as also several " figures of syntax " rather than " of 
rhetoric," have been considered in the former part of this 
work, and do not immediately concern us here, where we 
are dealing with the representation of one phase or pro- 
cess of thought through words that refer to another. Of 
the figures that do concern us, it may be said, in general, 
that they all have a tendency to present the thought in 
some picturesque way. In all of them some special phase 
or process, which can be perceived, is used in order to 
bring vividly before the mind some other like it, which can- 
not be perceived, — at least, as easily. Ordinarily they are 
used in order to illustrate some general principle more or 
less abstract in its nature, and of wide applicability, as 
where Jacob in the Scriptures is made to say : " Judah is 
a lion's whelp," or Paul to say : " For me to live is 
Christ," each statement putting into the concrete form 
of a picture what it would take pages to express in full. 

These figures, in which the pictures are perceptible, can 
be classified under two heads, corresponding to those al- 
ready used in classifying words ; they may be said to de- 
pend for their meaning largely upon the principle of asso- 
ciation, or entirely upon that of comparison. The chief 
of the former class of figures — that, in fact, of which all of 
them are modifications — is Metonomy. By this is meant a 
change of names between things related : like, for example, 
cause and effect, as in : " When every rood of ground 
maintained its man," instead of " all the products of the 
ground," and " Gray hairs should be respected," instead 
of " old age " ; or like place and its inhabitants, as in : 



I98 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

" America is disgraced by speculators," instead of " the 
people of America " ; or like the sign and the thing signi- 
fied, as in : " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah," 
instead of " the royal succession " ; or like subject and its 
attribute, as in : " A sleighful of youth and health," in- 
stead of " the young and healthy " ; or like progenitor and 
posterity, as in : " Hear, O Israel," instead of " descend- 
ants of Israel " ; or like container and thing contained, as 
in : " Our ships opened fire," instead of " the sailors " in 
them ; or like the possessor and the tiling possessed, as 
in : " Drove the bristled lips before him," instead of " the 
man with the lips " ; or like the material and the thing 
made from it, as in : " His steel gleamed on high," instead 
of his " sword." 

A special form of metonomy is termed Synecdoche, which 
means the using of the name of a part for that of the 
whole, or the name of the whole for that of a part, or of a 
definite number for an indefinite, as in these : " The sea is 
covered with sails," instead of " ships " ; " Our hero was 
gray," instead of " his hair " ; " and " Ten thousand were 
on his right hand," instead of " a large number." 

Trope is usually considered to be a general term apply- 
ing to all turns of expression made through the use of 
single words, whether in the way of metonomy, synec- 
doche, or metaphor. But some hold that the trope em- 
bodies the principle of metonomy applied not, as that 
figure is, to nouns but. to adjectives. Thus by a trope, 
according to Macbeth's " Might and Mirth of Literature," 
an adjective describing one operated on is assigned to the 
cause, as in, "the weary way " or " the merry bells" ; an 
adjective belonging to a subject is bestowed on one part or 
member of it, as in, " religious footsteps " ; an adjective 
true of an agent is applied to his instrument, as in, " coward 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 1 99 

sword " ; an adjective belonging to the possessor is applied 
to the thing possessed, as in, " The gentleman with foolish 
teeth " ; an adjective descriptive of a season, place, or 
person is assigned to an object connected with it, as in, 
" Winding its sultry horn " ; an adjective proper to the 
cause is joined to its effect, as in, " the sweet load " ; and 
an adjective qualifying the thing worn is made to qualify 
the wearer of it, as in, " The dogs far kinder than their 
purple masters." 

We now come to the figures based directly and entirely 
on the principle of comparison ; and, as they are the most 
clearly figurative, and as it is in using them that mistakes 
in imagery are most likely to occur, and as, if correctly 
used, they involve the correct use of all imagery of this 
kind, — in short, as they are typical of every form of rep- 
resentative expression, it is to these mainly that attention 
will be confined in our further discussions of this subject. 
The first of these is the Simile. In this, the comparison 
between one entity and another is made explicitly, and 
the two are usually joined by the words like, as, or so, as 
in, " He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers," " Christ 
is like a life-boat." The second is the Metaphor. In this, 
the comparison is made implicitly ; it is taken for 
granted that the reader will supply the missing links, and 
no connecting like, as, or so is used. " He shall be a tree 
planted by the rivers," and " Christ is a life-boat," are 
metaphors. Here are others : 

And when the lark, the laureate of the sun, 
Doth climb the east, eager to celebrate 
His monarch's crowning. 

— A Life Drama, 2 : Alex. Smith. 

I 've learned to prize the quiet lightning deed ; 
Not the applauding thunder at its heels, 
Which men call fame. 

— Idem, 13, 



200 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The third figure is Hyperbole, which need not, but, as a 
fact, usually does, involve comparison. In the latter case, 
it is merely a simile with one of its factors exaggerated, 
as in, " They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger 
than lions." The fourth figure is Allegory. This is an 
extended simile, in which, however, only one of the two 
things compared is described at length, as in " Thou hast 
brought a vine out of Egypt, thou has cast out the 
heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, 
and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. 
The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the 
boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars." It will be 
noticed that the last two figures involve no principles 
that do not apply equally to the first two. For this 
reason, our discussion of figurative language, as used in 
poetry, can practically be narrowed down to little more 
than a treatment of the uses and abuses of the simile and 
metaphor. 

Certain laws, with reference to the employment of 
these figures, have been determined by the criticism of 
the past, and are recorded as accepted principles in every 
ordinary Rhetoric. It may be well to refresh our memories 
by recalling these laws, as preliminary to what is to be said 
hereafter. The truth underlying them all is the fact, well 
understood with reference to both the simile and the 
metaphor, that nothing is gained by any use of these 
which does not add to the effect of the thought to which 
they give expression. For this reason, they are ac- 
knowledged to be faulty when the resemblance between 
the things compared is too slight to render the picture 
apparent, as in this : 

Give me thy crown. — Here, Cousin, seize the crown ; 
Here on this side, my hand ; on that side, thine. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 201 

Now is the golden crown like a deep well, 
That owns two buckets, filling one another ; 
The emptier ever dancing in the air, 
The other down unseen and full of water ; 
That bucket down and full of tears am I, 
Drinking my griefs whilst you mount up on high. 

— Richard II., iv., r : Shakespear. 

Or too trite to render the picture striking, as in repeti- 
tions of old, familiar, often-noticed resemblances, like 
these : 

Hearts firm as steel, as marble hard, 
'Gainst faith and love and pity barred, 
Have quaked like aspen leaves in May 
Beneath its universal sway. 

— Rokeby, 2 : Scott. 

Or too apparent to need mention, as in this, because all 
women are so much alike that the picture is not helped 
by directing attention to more than one : 

To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorn'd 
Likest she seem'd — Pomona when she fled 
Vertumnus — or to Ceres in her prime, 
Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove. 

— Paradise Lost, g : Milton. 

Or too unintelligible, as in this, because one of the things 
compared is not well known : 

What, dullard ? we and you in smothery chafe, 
Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin 
The Horrid . . . 

Potsherd him, Gibeonites ! 

— Sordello, 3 : Browning. 

Or too unequal, either because the subject illustrated is 
too great and dignified for that which is compared to it, 
as in this : 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine ; 



202 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A Traveller between life and death. 

— She Was a Phantom of Delight : Wordsworth. 

Or because the subject illustrated is too small and insig- 
nificant for that which is compared to it, as in this: 

Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, 

So roared the lock when it released the spring. 

— Odyssey, 21 : Pope's Trans. 

The above principles need only to be mentioned to have 
their reasonableness recognized. To some of them ref- 
erence will be made hereafter ; but attention will be con- 
fined chiefly to the two following, because in poetic repre- 
sentation it is these that chiefly interfere with excellence. 
The first is the "far-fetched" simile or metaphor, as it is 
called. In this, minor points of resemblance are sought 
out and detailed to such an extent that the main thought 
is liable to be forgotten, while attention is concentrated 
on subjects that really are of no importance except so far 
as they illustrate it. This fault and its effects will be am- 
ply treated in Chapter Twenty-sixth. 

The second fault, to which special attention will be 
directed, is the " blending " and " mixing " of similes and 
metaphors. Both are manifestations of one tendency. 
The "blending" occurs when plain and figurative ex- 
pressions are used with reference to the same object in the 
same clause or sentence. It is this fault, introduced into 
the text without warrant by the words used in the transla- 
tion, that causes Homer in the following to speak of hav- 
ing a column torn from one's embrace without a kind adieu. 
Of course the picture here is not true to life, and in this 
sense is not representative : 

Now from my fond embrace by tempests torn, 
Our other column of the state is borne, 
Nor took a kind adieu nor sought consent. 

— Odyssey, 4 : Pope's Trans. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 203 

The " mixing " occurs when two different figures apply- 
ing to the same object are used in immediate connection; 
as where Tennyson says, as if one had to dip in order 
to see, or could see with a dipper : 



When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see. 

— Locks ley Hall. 

Or Addison, as if he could bridle a ship, or launch a horse : 

I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, 
That longs to launch into a bolder strain. 

— Letter from Italy. 

A still more important consideration with reference to 
these figures, and one that underlies the entire use of the 
language embodying them, is to determine under what cir- 
cumstances thought and feeling should be expressed in 
them rather than in plain language. Fortunately, as an 
aid to our answer, both forms of language are natural to 
conversation ; and by finding out their uses here, we may 
come to understand the principles that should control their 
use in poetry. To begin with, Ave must bear in mind that 
the object of language is to cause others to share our men- 
tal processes, to communicate to them the substance of 
our ideas and their associated feelings. In doing this, it 
represents both what a man has observed in the external 
world and what he has experienced in his own mind — not 
either one or the other, but invariably both of them. If a 
man, for instance, show us a photograph of something that 
he has seen, he holds before our eyes precisely what has been 
before his own eyes ; but if he describe the scene in words, 
he holds before our mind only those parts of it that have 
attracted his attention ; and not only so, but added to 
these parts many ideas and emotions of his own that were 
not in the scene but occurred to him when viewing it. 



204 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

A similar added element from the man's mind accompanies 
every endeavor of his to tell what he has heard, or even, 
at some other time, thought or felt. From these facts, it 
follows that the aim of language, so far as this can be de- 
termined by what it actually and necessarily does, is to 
cause the same effects to be produced in the hearer's 
mind that are experienced in the speaker's mind. Now if 
one, when talking, conceives that this is an easy aim to 
attain ; that what he has heard or seen or thought or felt, 
needs only to be told in clear, intelligible phraseology, in 
order to produce in another the same effects as in himself, 
then he will be content with conventional modes of ex- 
pression ; he will use in the main plain language, whether 
referring to what he has heard, as in this : 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 

And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips, — " The foe ! they come ! they come ! 

— Childe Harold, 3 : Byron. 

Or to what he has seen, as in this : 

Then from the shining car 
Leaped Hector with a mighty cry, and seized 
A ponderous stone, and, bent to crush him, ran 
At Teucer, who had from his quiver drawn 
One of his sharpest arrows, placing it 
Upon the bowstring. As he drew the bow, 
The strong-armed Hector hurled the jagged stone, 
And smote him near the shoulder, where the neck 
And breast are sundered by the collar-bone, — 
A fatal spot. The bowstring brake ; the arm 
Fell nerveless ; on his knees the archer sank, 
And dropped the bow. Then did not Ajax leave 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 



205 



His fallen brother to the foe, but walked 
Around him, sheltering him beneath his shield, 
Till two dear friends of his — Menestheus, son 
Of Echius, and Alastor nobly born — 
Approached, and took him up and carried him, 
Heavily groaning, to the hollow ships. 

—Iliad, 8 : Bryants Tr. 

Or to what he has thought, as in this : 

By the world, 
I think my wife be honest, and think she is not ; 
I think that thou art just, and think thou art not. 
I '11 have some proof. 

— Othello, iii., 3 : Shakespear. 

Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn ; 

Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on ; 

And turn again ; and she can weep, sir, weep ; 

And she 's obedient, as you say, — obedient, — 

Very obedient. 

— Idem, iv., I. 

Or to what he has felt, as in this : 

Six feet in earth my Emma lay ; 

And yet I loved her more, 
For so it seemed, than till that day 

I e'er had loved before. 

And turning from her grave, I met, 

Beside the churchyard yew, 
A blooming girl whose hair was wet 

With points of morning dew. 

A basket on her head she bare ; 

Her brow was smooth and white ; 
To see a child so very fair, 

It was a pure delight ! 
% * * * * 

There came to me a sigh of pain 

Which I could ill confine ; 
I looked at her, and looked again, 

And did not wish her mine ! 

— Two April Mornings : Wordsworth. 



206 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

On the other hand, however, if a man conceives that 
the end at which he is aiming is difficult to attain ; that 
what he has heard, or seen, or thought, or felt, either on 
account of its own nature, or of the nature of those whom 
he is addressing, is hard for them to realize in its full 
force, and with all its attendant circumstances, then, as 
his object is to convey not merely an apprehension 
but a comprehension, both complete and profound, of 
that of which he has to speak, he will dwell upon it ; he 
will repeat his descriptions of it ; he will tell not only 
what it is, but what it is like ; in other words, he will try 
to produce the desired effect, by putting extra force into 
his language, and, in order to do this, inasmuch as the 
force of language consists in its representative element, 
he will augment the representation by multiplying his 
comparisons ; his language will become figurative. It will 
be so for the same reason that the language of a savage 
or a child, even when giving utterance to less occult ideas, 
is figurative, — because he feels that the words at his com- 
mand are inadequate to express or impress his meaning 
completely. Notice the exemplifications of these state- 
ments in the following, referring to what has been heard : 

A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
And as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
All night in a waste land wliere no one comes. 

— Mori d y Arthur : Tennyson. 

And the wide hum of that wild host 
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast, 
As rose the Muezzin's voice in air 
In midnight call to wonted prayer ; 
It rose, that chanted mournful strain, 
Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain ; 
'T was musical, but sadly sweet, 
Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 



207 



And take a long, unmeasured tone, 
To mortal minstrelsy unknown. 

— The Siege of Corinth : Byron. 

To what has been seen : 

As when the ocean billows, surge on surge, 
Are pushed along to the resounding shore 
Before the western wind, and first a wave 
Uplifts itself, and then against the land 
Dashes and roars, and round the headland peaks 
Tosses on high and spouts its spray afar, 
So moved the serried phalanxes of Greece 
To battle, rank succeeding rank, each chief 
Giving command to his own troops. 

— Iliad, 4 : Bryant's Tr. 

To what has been thought : 

I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, 
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers ; 
I had rather hear a brazen can'stick turn'd, 
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree ; 
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, 
Nothing so much as mincing poetry. 
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag. 

— 1 Henry IV., hi., 1 : Shakespear. 

She moves as light across the grass 
As moves my shadow large and tall ; 

And like my shadow, close yet free, 

The thought of her aye follows me, 
My little maid of Moreton Hall. 

— A Mercenary Marriage : D. M. Mulock. 

And to what has been felt : 

Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 

The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword ; 

Th' expectancy and rose of the fair State, 

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 

Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down ! 

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, 

That suck'd the honey of his music vows, 

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. 

— Hamlet, iii., I : Shakespear. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PROSE AND POETRY ; PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTA- 
TION IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS. 

Tendencies of Plain Language toward Prose, and of Figurative toward 
Poetry — Plain Language tends to Present Thought, and Figurative to 
Represent it — All Art Representative — But Plain Language may rep- 
resent, and Figurative may present — Poetic Representation depends 
upon the Character of the Thought — If a Poet thinks of Pictures, 
Plain Language describing them will represent according to the Method 
of Direct Representation — If not of Pictures, he may illustrate his 
Theme by thinking in Pictures, and use Figurative Language accord- 
ing to the Methods of Indirect or Composite Illustrative Representa- 
tion — Pure Representation is solely Representative — Alloyed Repre- 
sentation contains some Presentation. 

""PHERE is a subtle feeling in the minds of many, but 
especially of those who, with strong imaginations 
and delicate aesthetic sensibilities, have not improved their 
critical faculties by a wide acquaintance with the best 
poetry, that figurative language only is in the highest 
sense poetic. Whenever a feeling like this exists, it 
should be treated with respedt ; we may be sure that 
there is a reason for it. The feeling in the particular 
case before us, leads to an erroneous inference, as we must 
conclude from considerations already noticed, and this con- 
clusion will be confirmed as we go on. But how about the 
origin of the feeling ? It springs, as seems most likely, 
from the fact that plain and figurative language are judged 
less from the effects that they produce when actually used 

208 



PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 209 

in poetry, than from the principles that appear to be ex- 
emplified in their formation. If carried to an extreme, 
the tendencies that lead to plain language move unmis- 
takably toward prose, as those that lead to figurative lan- 
guage move toward poetry. The error just mentioned lies 
in mistaking tendencies for a consummation of them. 

These tendencies, however, are important in their bear- 
ings upon the real distinction that separates prose from 
poetry. Let us for a little consider them. 

Plain language, as we have traced it, is a development of 
the instinctive methods of expression used in natural ejac- 
ulations. These, by being associated with the circum- 
stances under which they are uttered, come to be used 
as words ; and, in a broad way of generalizing, there is a 
sense in which all words, no matter how originated, when- 
ever they come to mean what they do on account of this 
principle, can be put in this class. But now, if we think a 
little, we shall recognize that, from the moment of the 
utterance of the first ejaculation to the use of the latest 
sound which means what it does merely because conven- 
tionally associated with an idea to which it stands in the 
relation of an arbitrary symbol, the tendency exemplified 
is a desire to present rather than to represent the thought 
or feeling. 

Just the contrary, however, is true of figurative lan- 
guage. We have traced it to a development of the reflec- 
tive methods of expression which arise when one hears and 
imitates for a purpose the sounds about him. The same 
tendency is carried out when he puts these sounds to- 
gether, after they have become conventional words, so as 
to represent the relations between the sights about him, as 
in the terms express, understand ; in fact, it is carried out in 
every case in which there is a use of imaginative or figura- 



210 POETRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

tive language. This latter language, then, from its earliest 
source to its utmost development, exemplifies a tendency 
to represent rather than merely to present the thought or 
feeling. 

This work has constantly maintained that art is repre- 
sentative ; and, bearing this in mind, we shall begin to get 
a glimmer of the reason why poetry, which is the artistic 
form of language, is associated in many minds only with 
these representative words or figurative modes of expres- 
sion. But we have not yet reached the whole truth with 
reference to the matter. 

It must be remembered that thus far we have been 
dealing mainly with single words or a very few of them 
arranged in single sentences. Each of these words or sen- 
tences may be supposed to express some single phase or 
process of the mind's experiences. But to express a 
series of these processes, as words usually do when used 
at all, we need a series of words and sentences. Now it is 
conceivable that, though each factor of the series when 
taken by itself, should merely present some single phase, 
all the factors when taken together should represent 
a series of these phases ; and it is equally conceivable that 
though each factor of the series when taken by itself 
should represent a mental phase, all the factors when 
taken together should merely present a series of these 
phases. In other words, it is conceivable that owing to 
the artistic use, not of single words but of series of them, 
plain language should represent the thought and feeling, 
and therefore be poetic ; and it is equally conceivable that 
figurative language should merely present these, and there- 
fore be prosaic ; prose, so far as it is determined by the 
mode of communicating thought, being the presentative 
form of that of which poetry is the representative. 



PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 2ll 

These conditions which we have considered conceiv- 
able, we shall find to be true in fact ; and for this reason 
poetic methods of communicating thought, considered as 
a whole, must be judged, precisely as was said in another 
place of poetic sounds, by the degree in which they repre- 
sent the thought or feeling to which they give expression. 
Now what, in the last analysis must determine the method 
of the communication ? — what but the method in which 
the thought itself is conceived in the mind of the writer? 
If he think in pictures, his words, whether or not pictur- 
esque or figurative in themselves, will describe pictures 
Otherwise they will not. Moreover, if we reflect a mo- 
ment, we shall recognize that there are many times when 
he can think in pictures, even when he is not thinking of 
pictures; as, for instance, when he is impressing a truth 
upon the mind through using a story, a parable, or an 
illustration, as we call it. In this case, his language, if it 
accurately convey to us that which is passing before his 
own mind, must be representative, and not merely presen- 
tative. 

Accordingly we find, when we get to the bottom of our 
subject, that the figurative or the representative element 
in poetry must exist in the thought as well as in the 
phraseology. If it exist only in the main thought, we 
have representation in plain language, or direct representa- 
tion; if in the phraseology, by which is meant now the 
phraseological thought illustrating the main thought, we 
have representation in figurative language, or illustrative 
representation, which, in turn, as will be shown presently, 
it is possible, but not practicable, to divide again into 
indirect and composite representation. If, in any of these 
ways, all the thought that is expressed in a passage be 
represented, the form of the representation in this work 



212 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

will be termed pure ; if a part of the thought be merely 
presented, the representation will be termed alloyed ; and 
in the degree in which this is the case, it will be shown 
by and by that the whole is prosaic. 

Pure representation is imitative in character, as we 
should expect from the imitative tendency of which we 
have found it to be an outgrowth, and its methods are 
not wholly unlike those of painting. When composing in 
accordance with them, the poet indicates his thought by 
using words referring to things that can be perceived ; 
and in this way he causes the imaginations of those whom 
he addresses to perceive pictures. Alloyed representa- 
tion, while following in the main the methods of that 
which is pure, always contains more or less of something 
which cannot be supposed to have been perceived, at 
least not in connection with circumstances like those that 
are being detailed. For this reason, that which is added 
to the representation is like alloy, interfering with the 
pureness and clearness of the pictures presented to the 
imaginations of those addressed. It appeals to them not 
according to the methods of poetry, but of science or 
philosophy, or of any kind of thought addressed merely 
to the logical understanding. 

The distinction between pure and alloyed representa- 
tion lies at the basis of all right appreciation of poetic 
effects. Yet a man is more fortunate than most of his 
fellows, if among all his literary friends he finds one who 
really understands the difference between the two. Be- 
cause, therefore, of the general ignorance with reference to 
this distinction, as also of its intrinsic subtlety, both forms 
of representation will now be explained and illustrated in 
full. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 

In what sense, and how far, Thought and Feeling can be Communicated 
Representitively — Pure Representation, as used by Tennyson — Hunt, 
etc. — Pure Direct Representation, as used by Homer, Milton, Shake- 
spear, Morris, Heine, Tennyson, Arnold, Burns, Gilbert, etc. — Exten- 
sive Use of this Method in all Forms of Poetry. 

T T has been maintained all along in this work that the 
forms of art represent partly that which is passing in 
the mind of the artist at the time of composition, and partly 
that which he has perceived in nature. The art products 
— to state in a single expression all that they can do — 
symbolize the thoughts and feelings of the artist through 
an arrangement of the phenomena of nature which repre- 
sents them. If we are to approach the subject before us 
in a logical way, therefore, it seems appropriate that we 
should first determine in what sense and to what extent 
thoughts and feelings can be expressed at all in any 
definite way according to the methods of representation. 
Afterwards we can go on and ask how a man desirous of 
representing his own thoughts and feelings would use the 
phenomena of nature in order to do this. 

In considering the first of these questions, attention 
will be directed only to examples of pure representation. 
This will enable the reader to notice not only in what 
sense and how far thoughts and feelings can be repre- 
sented as a possibility ; but also, in connection with this, 

213 



214 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

how they actually are represented when poetry is at its 
best. Under these circumstances, as has been said, the 
poetry contains nothing except representation ; and for 
this reason, if for no other, it is very properly termed 
pure. Its composer, when producing it, confines himself 
to his legitimate work. Poetry, as we have found, is an 
art ; and art does not consist of thoughts, explanations, 
or arguments concerning things, but of images or pictures 
representing them ; and there can be no legitimate image 
or picture, except of what may be supposed to be per- 
ceived. If, for instance, certain persons are doing certain 
things, one will probably draw some inferences from their 
actions with reference to their motives, and he will have a 
right to tell his inferences — in prose ; but not, as a rule, in 
poetry. In this, he must picture what he has observed, 
and leave others, as free as he himself has been, to infer 
what they choose. At the same time, in the degree in 
which he is an artist, his picture will be of such a charac- 
ter as to impel others to draw from it the same inference 
that he himself has drawn. To illustrate how a genuine 
artist can make his product influence others thus, let me 
quote Tennyson's description of what followed the read- 
ing, by the poet Hall, of his epic on the " Death of Ar- 
thur." The reader will remember, perhaps, that when 
Hall began to read, he described the poem as being 
" nothing worth." The mention of this fact will explain 
the use of the phrase " There, now, — that 's nothing," in 
the quotation. 

Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long 
Had winked and threatened darkness, flared and fell ; 
At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, 
And waked with silence, grunted " Good ! " but we 
Sat rapt ; it was the tone with which he read — 
Perhaps some modern touches here and there 



PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 21 5 

Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness, — 

Or else we loved the man, and prized his work ; 

I know not ; but we sitting, as I said, 

The cock crew loud : as at that time of year 

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn : 

Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, 

" There, now, — that 's nothing ! " drew a little back, 

And drove his heel into the smouldered log, 

That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue ; 

And so to bed. 

— Mort d'A rth ur : Ten nyson . 

Is not this simple tale of what was done, much more 
expressive than would have been a long prosy description 
of what was felt? This example shows, therefore, that 
poetry may be strictly representative of external sights 
and sounds, — may confine itself to that which reproduces 
for the imagination a picture ; and yet may be equally 
and in the highest sense representative also of those ideas 
and feelings which exist only in the mind. 

Nor must it be supposed that this kind of representa- 
tion is unfitted for clear and forcible communication of 
thought. Notice in the following how effectively Leigh 
Hunt represents his moral : 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 

And saw within the moonlight in his room, 

Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, 

An angel writing in a book of gold : 

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 

And to the presence in his room he said : 

" What writest thou ? " — the vision raised its head, 

And, with a look made of all sweet accord, 

Answered : " The names of those who love the Lord." 

"And is mine one?" said Abou. " Nay, not so," 

Replied the angel. Abou spake more low, 

But cheerly still, and said : " I pray thee, then, 

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 



2l6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 

It came again with a great wakening light, 

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, — 

And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest ! 

— Abou Ben Ad hem. 

Equally successful in indicating their thoughts were the 
authors of the following : 

Jack brags he never dines at home, 

With reason, too, no doubt — 
In truth, Jack never dines at all 

Unless invited out. 

— Elegant Extracts. 

The golden hair that Galla wears 

Is hers — who would have thought it ? — 

She swears 't is hers, and true she swears, 
For I know where she bought it. 

— Harrington : Idem. 

It has been said that pure representation may be either 
direct or illustrative. Let us look now at some examples 
of it in both forms. After doing so, we shall be better 
prepared to pass on and compare with them the various 
departures from it exemplified in alloyed representation. 
Direct pure representative poetry, as has been intimated, 
pictures to the mind, without the use of figurative lan- 
guage, a single transaction or series of transactions in such 
a way as to influence the thoughts of him who hears the 
poetry, precisely as they would have been influenced had he 
himself perceived the transaction or series of transactions 
of which the poetry treats. The works of Homer, as in 
fact of all the classic writers, are filled with examples 
of this kind of representation. Here are some of them, 
with an occasional exceptional expression in illustrative 
representation, indicated by italics : 

Then, from the fleet, illustrious Hector led 
The Trojans, and beside the eddying stream, 



PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 217 

In a clear space uncumbered by the slain, 
Held council. There, alighting from their cars, 
They listened to the words that Hector spake, — 
Hector beloved of Jove. He held a spear, 
In length eleven cubits, with a blade 
Of glittering brass, bound with a ring of gold. 
On this he leaned, and spake these winged words : 
" Hear me, ye Trojans, Dardans, and allies. 
But now I thought that, having first destroyed 
The Achaian host and fleet, we should return 
This night to wind-swept Ilium. To their aid 
The darkness comes, and saves the Greeks, and saves 
Their galleys ranged along the ocean side. 
Obey we then the dark-browed night ; prepare 
Our meal, unyoke the steeds with flowing manes, 
And set their food before them . . ." 

3: :£ $ =K $ $ 4: 

So Hector spake, and all the Trojan host 
Applauded ; from the yoke forthwith they loosed 
The sweaty steeds, and bound them to the cars 
With halters ; to the town they sent in haste 
For oxen and the fadings of the flock, 
And to their homes for bread and pleasant wine, 
And gathered fuel in large store. The winds 
Bore up the fragrant fumes from earth to heaven. 

— The Iliad, 8 : Bryant's Tr. 

Notice in these descriptions of contests in battle, how 
the directness and exactness of the language used aug- 
ment its representative power. 

Beneath the collar bone 
It pierced him and passed through ; the brazen point 
Came out upon the shoulder ; to the ground 
He fell, his armor clashing with his fall. 
Then Ajax smote the valiant Phorcys, son 
Of Phcenops, in the navel. Through the mail 
The brazen weapon broke, and roughly tore 
The entrails. In the dust he fell, and clenched 
The earth with dying hands. 

— Idem, 17. 



2 1 8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

The shorp stone smote his forehead as he held 
The reins, and crushed both eyebrows in ; the bone 
Resisted not the blow ; the warrior's eyes 
Fell in the dust before his very feet. 

He spake and set his heel 
Upon the slain, and from the wound drew forth 
His brazen spear and pushed the corpse aside, 
And with the weapon hurried on. 

— Idem, 1 6. 

In the last paragraph of " Paradise Lost," too, we have 
a fine example of direct representation : 

In either hand the hastening angel caught 

Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate 

Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast 

To the subjected plain ; then disappeared. 

They looking back, all the eastern side beheld 

Of paradise, so late their happy seat, 

Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate 

With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. 

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon. 

The world was all before them, where to choose 

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 

Through Eden took their solitary way. 

— P. Z., 12. 

There are many instances of the same in Shakespear 
also. Here are some : 

You all do know this mantle ; I x remember 

The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 

'T was on a summer's evening in his tent 

That day he overcame the Nervii. 

Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through ; 

See what a rent the envious Casca made ; 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 

And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it. 

— Julius Ccesar, iii., 2. 



PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 2IO, 

A figure like your father, 
Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-a-pie, 
Appears before them, and with solemn march 
Goes slow and stately by them. 

— Ha??ilet t i., 2. 

Among the writers of the present day, William Morris, 
perhaps, has been the most successful in this kind of repre- 
sentation. Notice the following from his story of " Cupid 
and Psyche " : 

They ceased, and Psyche, pondering o'er their song, 

About the chambers wandered at her will, 

And on the many marvels gazed her fill, 

Where'er she passed still noting everything ; 

Then in the gardens heard the new birds sing, 

And watched the red fish in the fountains play, 

And at the very faintest time of day 

Upon the grass lay sleeping for a while 

'Midst heaven-sent dreams of bliss that made her smile ; 

And, when she woke, the shades were lengthening, 

So to the place where she had heard them sing 

She came again, and through a little door 

Entered a chamber with a marble floor, 

Open atop unto the outer air, 

Beneath which lay a bath of water fair, 

Paved with strange stones and figures of bright gold, 

And from the steps thereof could she behold 

The slim-leaved trees against the evening sky 

Golden and calm, still moving languidly. 

So for a time upon the brink she sat, 

* * * % % * :}S 

And then arose and slowly from her cast 

Her raiment, and adown the steps she passed 

Into the water, and therein she played, 

Till of herself at last she grew afraid, 

And of the broken image of her face, 

And the loud splashing in that lonely place. 

— The Earthly Paradise. 



220 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And, lest any should think that this kind of representa- 
tion is confined to epic and dramatic art, here is one of 
Heine's lyrics. Could any thing illustrate better than this 
does, the fact that, under certain circumstances, poetry and 
painting can be made to have the same effects ? Although 
a changing series of scenes is pictured in this beautiful 
little poem, as is proper where the medium of representation 
is a series of words, the feelings suggested by it are almost 
identical with those which would be awakened by the 
single scene of a painting. 

We sat by the fisher's cottage, 

And looked at the stormy tide ; 
The evening mist came rising. 

And floating far and wide. 

One by one in the lighthouse 

The lamps shone out on high ; 
And far on the dim horizon 

A ship went sailing by. 

We spoke of storm and shipwreck, — 

Of sailors, and how they live ; 
Of journeys 'twixt sky and water, 

And the sorrows and joys they give. 

We spoke of distant countries, 

In regions strange and fair, 
And of the wondrous beings 

And curious customs there ; 

Of perfumed lamps on the Ganges, 

Which were launched in the twilight hour ; 

And the dark and silent Brahmins, 
Who worship the lotus flower. 

Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, — 

Broad-headed, wide-mouthed, and small, — 

Who crouch round their oil-fires cooking, 
And chatter, and scream, and bawl. 



PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 221 

And the maidens earnestly listened, 

Till at last we spoke no more : 
The ship like a shadow had vanished, 

And darkness fell deep on the shore. 

— The Fisher s Cottage : Tr. by C. G. Leland. 

This is all that there is to the poem ; yet, after reading 
it, we could sit and muse for hours, as we could before a 
painting, recalling what people talk about under such cir- 
cumstances, — how little things make imagination wander 
off to the ends of the earth, — and of how little account it 
all is when the wandering is over. 

Here, too, is another lyric, a celebrated one, and of the 
most effective type ; yet it contains nothing but direct 
representation : 

Break, break, break, 

On thy cold, gray stones, oh Sea ! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman's boy 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
O well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of the crags, oh Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

— Break, Break, Break ; Tennyson. 

Notice these also : 

Each on his own strict line we move, 
And some find death ere they find love; 
So far apart their lives are thrown 
From the twin soul that halves their own. 



222 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And sometimes, by still harder fate, 
The lovers meet, but meet too late. 
— Thy heart is mine ! — True, true ! ah, true ! 
— Then, love, thy hand ! — Ah, no ! adieu ! 

— Too Late : Matthew Arnold. 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 

I dearly like the west, 
For there the bonnie lassie lives, 

The lassie I lo'e best ; 
There wild woods grow, an' rivers flow, 

An' mony a hill between ; 
But day an' night my fancy's flight 

Is ever wi' my Jean. 

I see her in the dewy flowers, 

I see her sweet an' fair ; 
I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 

I hear her charm .the air : 
There 's not a bonnie flow'r that springs 

By fountain, shaw, or green, 
There 's not a bonnie bird that sings, 

But minds me o' my Jean. 

— I Love my Jean : Bums. 

The following also may be classed as direct representa- 
tion. It is humorous, too, for the very reason that it is 
direct, confessing to a kind of pride very common, but 
very seldom recognized to be irrational and absurd, be- 
cause not expressed in such a straightforward, unequivocal 
way. 

He is an Englishman, 

For he himself has said it, 

And it 's greatly to his credit 
That he is an Englishman. 

For he might have been a Roosian, 

A French, or Turk, or Proosian, 
Or perhaps Ital-i-an ; 

But in spite of all temptations 

To belong to other nations, 
He remains an. Englishman. 

•—Pinafore, 2 : Gilbert, 



PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 223 

Much of Gilbert's fun is of this same sort. Probably 
many an old maid has had thoughts like the following ; 
but ordinarily, if not ashamed of them, she is too bashful 
to acknowledge them. They appear ridiculous only when 
bawled out at the top of the voice of a stalwart contralto 
into the ears of hundreds. 

Sad is the woman's lot who, year by year, 
Sees one by one her beauties disappear. 
****** 

Silvered is the raven hair, 

Spreading is the parting straight, 
Mottled the complexion fair, 

Halting is the youthful gait, 
Hollow is the laughter free, 

Spectacled the limpid eye ; 
Little will be left of me 

In the coming by and by. 

Fading is the taper waist, 

Shapeless grows the shapely limb, 
And, although severely laced, 

Spreading is the figure trim ; 
Stouter than I used to be, 

Still more corpulent grow I, 
There will be too much of me 

In the coming by and by. 

— Patience, 2 : Gilbert. 

Those whose attention has never been directed to the 
fact, will be surprised upon examination to find how many 
poems contain nothing but this direct representation. 
Among them can be included almost all those that in the 
true sense of the term are ballads, like Scott's " Lochinvar," 
and its models in Percy's Reliques. Not only so, but as 
this form of representation may reproduce that which may 
be supposed to have been heard or said, as well as seen or 
done, in this class may be included a large number of 



224 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

more reflective poems, like Tennyson's May Queen, and 
Northern Farmer. It must be borne in mind, however, 
that when this style is used there is special need that the 
ideas to be expressed be picturesque in themselves, or 
else concentrations in concrete form illustrating much 
poetic truth that is generic and universal in its applica- 
bility. For poems fulfilling perfectly the first condition, 
notice Kingsley's Three Fishers, and O Mary Go and Call 
the Cattle Home, quoted in Chapter Twenty-seventh of 
this work. For a poem fulfilling the second, Burns' 
Address to the Louse on a Lady s Bonnet, is as good as any. 
He ends that, as will be remembered, passing, however 
in order to do it, from pure into alloyed representation, 
in this way : 

O wad some power the giftie gi'e us 
To see oursel's as ithers see us ! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us 

And foolish notion : 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

And e'en devotion ! 

When the conditions just mentioned are fulfilled, the 
conception itself is representative, and often all that is 
needed, for the highest poetry is a literal and therefore a 
direct statement of that which is perceived in conscious- 
ness. But this fact, in connection with further examples 
of direct representation, will be considered hereafter. 



CHAPTER XXL 



PURE INDIRECT OR ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 

Illustrative in Connection with Direct Representation enables a writer to ex- 
press almost any Phase of Thought representatively or poetically — 
Examples — Representation, if Direct, must communicate mainly what 
can be seen or heard — Inward Mental Processes can be pictured out- 
wardly and materially only by Indirect Representation — Examples 
from Longfellow, Arnold, Whittier, Smith — Direct Representation de- 
veloped from Instinctive Modes of Expression, exemplified in Ejacula- 
tory Sounds and Words formed from Association ; Indirect, developed 
from Reflective Modes, exemplified in Imitative Sounds and Words formed 
from Comparison — As in Primitive Language, with Meanings deter- 
mined by Sounds, the Intonations representing Emotive Tendency 
result from combining Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, so in De- 
veloped Language, with Meanings determined by Sense, the Emotive 
Tendency leads to a form of Illustration resulting from combining In- 
stinctive and Reflective Tendencies ; this might be termed Composite 
Representation — But, as in Rhetoric and Practice Indirect and Com- 
posite Representation follow the same Laws, both will be treated here as 
Illustrative Representation — Similes, ancient and modern, from Homer, 
Morris, Milton, Shakespear, Moore, Kingsley — Metaphors, ancient 
and modern — Used in Cases of Excitation — Examples. 

ET us pass on now to the illustrative forms of pure 
representation. The plain language used in direct 
representation is a development, as has been said, of the 
instinctive modes of expression, primarily exemplified in 
ejaculatory sounds ; and figurative language, now to be con- 
sidered, springs from the reflective modes primarily exem- 
plified in imitative sounds. Behind the latter, therefore, 
there is always an intellectual purpose, a plan, a desire to 

225 



226 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

impress, if not to convince. This motive would make a 
prose writer didactic and argumentative. The poet it 
drives to illustrations, each of which in genuine poetry 
must be representative or picturesque, although his main 
thought — differing in this particular from that which 
must be behind direct representation — need not be so. 

A moment's reflection will show us that this fact with 
reference to figurative or illustrative representation, ren- 
ders it possible for a writer to express almost any thought 
or feeling whatever in a representative and poetic way. 
A noise, for instance, whether slight or great, is not in it- 
self poetic ; if great, one would suppose that it would 
be the opposite, yet see how it may become poetic on ac- 
count of the way in which it is represented : 

And now and then an echo started up, 

And, shuddering, fled from room to room, and died 

Of fright in far apartments. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

Immediate in a flame, 
But soon obscured with smoke, all heaven appear'd, 
From those deep-throated engines belched, whose roar 
Embowel'd with outrageous noise the air, 
And all her entrails tore, disgorging foul 
Their devilish glut, chained thunderbolts, and hail 
Of iron globes, which on the victor host 
Level'd with such impetuous fury smote, 
That whom they hit none on their feet might stand. 

— Paradise Lost, 6 : Milton. 

That human beings often misunderstand each other is a 
commonplace fact of ordinary observation. But see what 
representation may do with the expression of the fact : 

We are spirits clad in veils ; 

Man by man was never seen ; 
All our deep communing fails 

To remove the shadowy screen. 



PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 227 

Heart to heart was never known ; 

Mind with mind did never meet ; 
We are columns left alone 

Of a temple once complete. 

Like the stars that gem the sky, 

Far apart, though seeming near, 
In our light we scattered lie ; 

All is thus but starlight here. 

— Thought : Crane h. 

To say that the murder of a good man will cause many 
to mourn, does not involve the utterance of a profound or 
beautiful thought, but the thought may be represented so 
as to seem both, as in this: 

Besides this, Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking off ; 
And pity, like a naked new-born babe, 
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur 
To prick the sides of my intent ; but only 
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself 

And falls on the other. 

— Macbeth, i., 7 ; Shake spear. 

So one might go through the whole catalogue of pos- 
sible thoughts and feelings, and it is a question whether 
a man, if enough of an artist, could not express every one 
of them in such words, or arrange it in such connections 
or balance it by such antitheses, or trail after it such sug- 
gestions, or put it into the mouths of such characters, 
placed in such positions, induced by such communica- 
tions, stirred by such surroundings, as to make it, 
although in itself most trivial, common, disagreeable, and 



228 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

mean, a part of a representation which, considered as a 
whole, would produce an aesthetic effect. 

It must be borne in mind, however, that this statement 
is true only because it is possible for the poet to use a 
kind of representation in addition to that which is direct. 
The latter, as we have found, must always give expression 
to thoughts or feelings which can be legitimately inferred 
from simple, straightforward accounts of certain real or 
imaginary events. It is all that is needed, therefore, when 
communicating conclusions derived from what has been 
seen or heard ; but not so always, when communicating 
that which, aside from any immediate outward influence, 
has been inwardly thought or felt. In the latter case, the 
mind, if it would represent rather than present what it has 
to say, must resort to figures. In using these as has been 
shown, it simply carries out a tendency exemplified in all 
language, from the time of the first imitative sounds to 
that of words like express, impress, and understand. In 
accordance with this tendency, unseen mental relations or 
processes are represented by referring to others resembling 
them, which are perceptible in the visible or material 
world. Instead of saying, " His integrity is impaired by 
severe temptation," one may say, " His uprightness bends 
before some pressing blast." In other words, instead of 
using conventional language, which simply presents an 
idea, one may assume the attitude of the first framers of 
language, and represent his idea, making it, in a sense, 
tangible, visible, graphic. An endeavor to do this, as 
applied to thoughts and feelings that cannot be directly 
represented, is the motive underlying the primitive use of 
figurative language, or indirect representation, which 
might be termed also metaphorical, in the sense of being 
constructed according to the methods of the metaphor, 



PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 229 

though all actual metaphors do not exemplify it, and 
some similes and allegories do. Longfellow, for instance, 
starts out to say that the examples of great men often en- 
courage and stimulate others ; but he ends by represent- 
ing his thought thus : 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time ; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 

— A Psalm of Life. 

Here a plain statement would be that the poet is not 
one of those constantly encouraged and guided by cheer- 
ing thoughts, but his words are these : 

The thoughts that rain their steady glow- 
Like stars on life's cold sea, 
Which others know or say they know — 
They never shine for me. 

Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky, 
But they will not remain ; 
They light me once, they hurry by, 
And never come again. 

— Despondency : Matthew Arnold. 

Here the declaration is made that care and trial, when 
passed, do not seem painful to the soul ; that they are 
means of developing its powers harmoniously, and increas- 
ing its inward satisfaction ; and that this fact causes the 
writer to submit cheerfully to the divine influence ; but 
what he really says is that he has learned : 

That care and trial seem at last, 
Through memory's sunset air, 



230 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Like mountain ranges overpast, 
In purple distance fair ; — 

That all the jarring notes of life 

Seem blending in a psalm, 
And all the angles of its strife 

Slow rounding into calm. 

And so the shadows fall apart, 

And so the west winds play ; 
And all the windows of my heart 

I open to the day. 

—My Psalm: Whittier. 

And here, once more, the writer wishes to describe in 
their order the effects upon the soul of sin, faith, aspira- 
tion, and love. 

Soon a trembling, naked figure, to the earth my face was bowed, 
For the curse of God gloomed o'er me like a bursting thunder-cloud. 
Rolled away that fearful darkness, past my weakness, past my grief, 
Washed with bitter tears I sat full in the sunshine of belief. 
Weary eyes are looking eastward, whence the golded sun upsprings, 
Cry the young and fervid spirits, clad with ardor as with wings : 
Life and soul make wretched jangling, they should mingle to one Sire, 
As the lovely voices mingle in a holy temple choir. 

— A Life Drama , 2 : Alex. Smith. 

In Chapter Twenty-seventh will be found several poems 
illustrating this kind of representation, constructed from 
beginning to end according to, the method of a single 
simile or allegory. Notice, especially, The Deserted House, 
by Tennyson, the Nocturne, by Aldrich, and The Wind 
and Stream, and The Tides, by Bryant. 

We have found, all along in this work, that the instinc- 
tive and reflective tendencies of the mind are constantly 
blending and producing effects resulting from combina- 
tions of the two. It is so in representation. The same 
method of comparison, which causes the mind to represent 



PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 23 1 

its immaterial states and processes through references to 
material ones, causes it to represent one material state or 
process through reference to another material one like it ; 
in other words, to use figurative language not only when 
speaking of what cannot be represented otherwise, but 
also when speaking of what can be, perhaps already has 
been, represented in a plain and direct way. This latter 
kind of comparative language is used mainly when the 
mind is more or less under the influence of emotion, — 
never, at least, in plain straightforward statements. It is 
used therefore under just such circumstances as, from what 
we have noticed, hitherto, we should expect. Precisely 
as in primitive language, with meanings determined by 
sounds, the intonations representing the emotive nature 
result from combining the instinctive and reflective ten- 
dencies ; so in the most fully developed language, that 
which represents the emotive nature, results from a similar 
combination. All the similes to be quoted presently 
furnish examples of this latter use of figures. That is to 
say, they all illustrate one material state or process by 
comparing it to another that is also material. This use of 
figures, as distinguished from the former, or primary, may 
be termed the secondary use of them. 

A careful analysis here, therefore, might give us, besides 
the direct representation of the instinctive nature, and the 
indirect or metaphorical of the reflective, a composite, or 
what we might term distinctively an illustrative represen- 
tation, because it is used mainly in what are colloquially 
called illustrations, blending the effects of the other two. 
But in rhetoric no discrimination is made between the 
primary and secondary uses of figures ; and, as the same 
principles apply to both, no practical advantage can be 
derived from separating them in our present discussion. 



232 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

All that is to be said in the following chapters, therefore, 
of indirect or of composite representation will be treated 
under the general head of illustrative representation. 

For reasons already explained, the two principal figures 
used for the purposes of illustration — and this is true 
whether the representation be indirect or composite — 
are the simile and the metaphor ; the former is of most 
frequent occurrence in the earliest poems. Notice the 
number of similes in this single passage from Homer: 

As when a forest on the mountain top 

Is in a blaze with the devouring flame, 

And shines afar, so, while the warriors marched, 

The brightness of their burnished weapons flashed 

On every side, and upward to the sky. 

And as when water-fowl of many tribes — 

Geese, cranes, and long-necked swans — disport themselves 

In Asia's fields beside Cayster's streams, 

And to and fro they fly with screams, and light, 

Flock after flock, and all the fields resound ; 

So poured, from ships and tents, the swarming tribes 

Into Scamander's plain, where fearfully 

Earth echoed to the tramp of steeds and men ; 

And there they mustered on the river's side, 

Numberless as the flowers and leaves of spring. 

And as when flies in swarming myriads haunt 

The herdsman's stalls in spring-time, when new milk 

Has filled the pails, — in such vast multitudes 

Mustered the long-haired Greeks upon the plain, 

Impatient to destroy the Trojan race. 

Then, as the goatherds, when their mingled flocks 

Are in the pastures, know, and set apart 

Each his own scattered charge, so did the chiefs, 

Moving among them, marshal each his men. 

— Iliad, 2 : Bryant's Trans. 

In modern poetry the extended simile is much less of a 
favorite than the metaphor. Yet we find many instances 
of the former. Here is a fine simile from The Lovers of 
Gudrun, by Morris : 



EXAMPLES OF SIMILES. 233 

As a gray dove, within the meshes caught, 
Flutters a little, then lies still again, 
Ere wildly beat its wings with its last pain, 
So once or twice her passion, as she spake, 
Rose to her throat, and yet might not outbreak 
Till that last word was spoken ; then, as stung 
By pain on pain, her arms abroad she flung, 
And wailed aloud. 

— The Earthly Paradise. 

Here is one of Milton's similes, highly commended by- 
Herbert Spencer in his essay on " The Philosophy of 
Style," as affording " a fine instance of a sentence, well 
arranged alike in the priority of the subordinate members, 
in the avoidance of long and numerous suspensions, and 
in the correspondence between the order of the clauses 
and the sequence of the phenomena described, which, by 
the way, is a further prerequisite to easy comprehension, 
and therefore to effect." 

As when a prowling wolf, 
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, 
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve, 
' In hurdled cotes amid the fields secure, 
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold : 
Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash 
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles : 
So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold ; 
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. 

— Paradise Lost, 4. 

And here is one from Shakespear in which metaphors 
also are included. Notice the graphic example of pure 
representation in the third and fourth lines : 

This battle fares like to the morning's war, 
When dying clouds contend with growing light ; 
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, 
Can neither call it perfect day nor night. 



234 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Now sways it this way like a mighty sea, 
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind ; 
Now sways it that way like the self-same sea, 
Forced to retire by fury of the wind : 
Sometimes the flood prevails : and then the wind : 
Now one the better, then another best ; 
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, 
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered : 
So is the equal poise of this fell war. 

— 3 Henry VI, ii., 5. 

Illustrative representation forms the substance of much 
of our lyric poetry, both serious and comic, as in the 
following containing only a single simile : 

The bird let loose in eastern skies, 

When hastening fondly home, 
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies 

Where idle warblers roam ; 
But high she shoots through air and light, 

Above all low delay, 
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 

Nor shadow dims her way. 

So grant me, God, from every care 

And stain of passion free, 
Aloft through Virtue's purer air, 

To hold my course to thee ! 
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay 

My soul, — as home she springs ; 
Thy sunshine on her joyful way, 

Thy freedom in her wings ! 

— The Bird let Loose : Thomas Moore. 

Here again is a very felicitous use of figures, which it 
may prove interesting to compare with the same author's 
method in direct representation, as employed in his O 
Mary Go and Call the Cattle Home, and The Fishermen, 
quoted in Chapter Twenty-seventh. 

There sits a bird on every tree ; 
Sing heigh-ho. 



EXAMPLES OF SIMILES. 235 

There sits a bird on every tree ; 
And courts his love as I do thee ; 
Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
Young maids must marry. 

There grows a flower on every bough ; 

Sing heigh-ho. 
There grows a flower on every bough ; 
Its petals kiss — I '11 show you how : 

Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
Young maids must marry. 

From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 

Sing heigh-ho. 
From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 
Each finds a mate and leads her home ; 

Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
Young maids must marry. 

The sun 's a bridegroom, earth a bride ; 

Sing heigh-ho. 
They court from morn to eventide ; 
The earth shall pass, but love abide ; 

Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
Young maids must marry. 

— Sing Heigh- Ho : Kingsley. 

Metaphors, to most readers, do not appear to be as fre- 
quent or as fine in the most ancient as in modern verse. 
This seems to be so, first, because what is once a meta- 
phorical use of a word comes, after a time, to be accepted 
as an ordinary use of it, if not as a secondary meaning for 
it. Homer may have originated the meanings given to 
the words pillar and shoulder in the following passages, 
and to his contemporaries each may have appeared to be 
a very significant metaphor. But the same words, or their 
equivalents in our language, used in the same senses, are 
so familiar to us to-day, that many, without having their 
attention drawn to the fact, do not recognize them to 
be metaphors at all. 



236 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The slain, though stranger born, 
Had been a. pillar of the realm of Troy. 

— Iliad 16 : Bryant's Translation. 

Thrice Patroclus climbed 
A shoulder of the lofty wall. 

— Idem. 

A second reason is that the metaphor, inasmuch as it 
depends for its force upon its suggestiveness, necessarily 
requires some sympathy on the part of the reader with 
the conditions of knowledge, thought, and feeling in the 
age to which it is addressed. We can imagine a time, for 
instance, in which the following passages, even if they 
could be conceived, would not be received with much 
favor. Yet they represent the forms of expression which, 
at the present time, are the most stirring and popular. 

Ignorance is the curse of God. 

— 2 Henry VI., iv., 7 : Shakespear. 

I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier, means to dress the commonwealth, 
and turn it, and set a new nap upon it. 

— 2 Henry VI., iv., 2 : Idem. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 

— Troilus and Cressida. iii., 3 : Idem. 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 
— Hymn Sung at Co??ipletion of the Concord Monument : Emerson. 

They take the rustic murmur of their bourg 
For the great wave that echbes round the world. 

— lay Is of the King, Geraint and Enid : Tennyson. 

Autels que la raison en montant submergea 

— la Temple, in la legend des Siecles : Hugo. 

A third reason is that, while the ancient figures of 
speech were prompted often by a desire to express 
thought adequately, the modern are prompted mainly by 
a desire to express it aesthetically. For this reason, inas- 



EXAMPLES OF METAPHORS. 237 

much as an end aimed at is usually the end attained, 
modern metaphors like modern paintings are, more often 
than ancient ones, results of the highest degree of artistic 
care and skill. Notice the following: 

Still as a slave before his lord, 

The ocean hath no blast ; 
His great bright eye most silently 

Up to the moon is cast. 

— The Ancient Mariner: Coleridge. 

I should make very forges of my cheeks, 
That would to cinders bum tip modesty, 
Did I but speak thy deeds. 

— Othello, iv., 2 : Shakespear. 

I sate upon the deck and watched all night, 
And listened throtigh the stars for Italy. 

Thus my Italy 
Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; 
The Doria's long pale palace striking out, 
From green hills in advance of the white town, 
A marble finger dominant to ships, 
Seen glimmering through the uncertain gray of dawn. 

— Aurora Leigh, 7 : Mrs. Browning. 

The simile is used mainly when there is only a moderate 
degree of excitation. When this is great, the mind flies 
naturally to the metaphor, as a more concentrated form of 
expression, representing many thoughts in a few words. 
So Macduff, in the second act of Macbeth, on seeing 
the dead Duncan, cries out : 

. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. 
Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope 
The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence 
The life o' the building ! 

Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight 

With a new Gorgon. 

Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, 



238 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And look on death itself ! up, up, and see 
The great doom's image ! — Malcolm ! Banquo ! 
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites 
To countenance this horror ! Ring the bell. 



Macb.: Had I but died an hour before this chance 

I had lived a blessed time ; for from this instant 
There 's nothing serious in mortality ; 
All is but toys ; renown and grace is dead ; 
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 
Is left this vault to brag of, 

— Macbeth, ii., 1 : Shakespear. 

The same abundant use of metaphorical language will 
be found in most of Shakespear's scenes representing 
quarrelling and love, like those, for instance, in Romeo 
and Juliet. This form, too, as we know, is that adopted 
in impassioned love lyrics. 

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 

That whenever a March-wind sighs 
He sets the jewel-print of your feet 

In violets blue as your eyes, 
To the woody hollows in which we meet 

And the valleys of Paradise. 

Queen rose of the rosebud, garden of girls, 

Come hither, the dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 

Queen lily and rose in one ; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 

To the flowers, and be their sun. 

JJC S> 5}> JfC 5JC )J< 

She is coming, my own, my sweet ; 

Were it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

"Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead ; 



EXAMPLES OF METAPHORS. 239 

Would start and tremble under her feet, 
And blossom in purple and red. 

— Ma ud : Ten nyson . 

Illustrative, like direct, representation may be used, of 
course, for wit and humor. 

When Loveless married Lady Jenny, 
Whose beauty was the ready penny ; 
" I chose her," says he, " like old plate, 
Not for the fashion but the weight." 

— Elegant Extracts. 

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come ; 
Knock as you please, there 's nobody at home. 

— Epigram : Pope. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PURE REPRESENTATION IN THE POETRY OF HOMER. 

How the Phenomena of Nature should be used in Representation — Homer 
as a Model — His Descriptions are Mental, Fragmentary, Specific, Typ- 
ical — The Descriptions of Lytton, Goethe, Morris, Southey, etc — 
Homer's Descriptions also Progressive — Examples — Dramatic Poems 
should show the same Traits — Homer's Illustrative Representation. 

TTAVING found now how poetry through pure rep- 
resentation, whether direct or illustrative, is able 
to give definite expression to thoughts and feelings, let 
us take up the second question proposed in Chapter 
Twentieth, and try to find how an artist desirous of rep- 
resenting his own thoughts and feelings must use the 
phenomena of nature in order to do this in the most effec- 
tive way. In answering this question, it is essential that 
we start with a proper standard. Fortunately, we can get 
one universally acknowledged to be sufficient for our pur- 
pose, in the works of Homer, and this too — to say much 
less than is deserved — in a sufficiently accurate English 
translation. So far at least as concerns the passages 
to be quoted in this discussion, all have been verified 
by comparing them with the original text. These poems 
of Homer have stood the tests of centuries, and there are 
reasons why they have survived them. The consideration 
which should interest us most in the present connection, 
is the fact that the poems were produced by a man who 
spoke directly from the first promptings of nature ; a man 

240 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 241 

upon whom the methods of representation in other arts, 
and of presentation as used in science and philosophy, had 
had the least possible influence. In his works, therefore, 
better than in any others with which, in our day, we can 
become acquainted, we can study the tendencies of poetry 
in its most spontaneous and unadulterated form. Let us 
begin here, therefore, by examining some of the poetry of 
Homer, and trying to find out how he dealt with the 
phenomena of nature. 

As we pursue our inquiry, one feature with reference to 
his methods should impress us immediately, and it may as 
well be mentioned before we take up any particular pas- 
sages, because it is apparent in all of them. It may be in- 
dicated by saying that the Homeric representations are all 
mental. They fulfil in this respect the requirement al- 
ready mentioned many times in this work — that the prod- 
ucts of art should represent both man and nature. By 
saying that the Homeric descriptions are mental, it is 
meant that they show that there is a mind between the 
phenomena of nature and the account of them that we 
get in the poetry — a mind addressing our minds. Not 
that this mind distorts the objects which it has perceived 
and describes; the fact is just the opposite. Homer's 
representations are pure in the highest sense ; yet they 
are not like those of a guide-book or map. He suggests 
his picture by telling us about those features of it that 
have had an effect upon him as a thinking being, or, — what 
is the same thing — that he expects will have an effect upon 
us. What he tells us is true to nature, but not, by any 
means, all the truth concerning it. Certain parts of the 
scenes presumably witnessed have arrested his attention, 
and suggested certain inferences to him. These parts, 
consciously or unconsciously, he selects and arranges in 



242 POETRY ASA REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

ways that arrest our attention as they have arrested his. 
In this sense it is that his descriptions are mental. Let 
us look now at some of them. Here is one of his accounts 
of a man, and another of a homestead, both very simple, 
but for this very reason admirably adapted to our present 
purpose. 

And first, ^Eneas, with defiant mien 

And nodding casque, stood forth. He held his shield 

Before him, which he wielded right and left. 

And shook his brazen spear. 

— Iliad, Book 20 : Bryant's Trans. 

He wedded there 
A daughter of Adrastus, and he dwelt 
Within a mansion filled with wealth ; broad fields 
Fertile in corn were his, and many rows 
Of trees and vines around him ; large his flocks, 
And great his fame as one expert to wield, 
Beyond all other Greeks, the spear in war. 

— Iliad, 14 : Bryant's Trans. 

Notice now, in the second place, that these descriptions 
are fragmentary, the items mentioned in them being few. 
They present us with just such incomplete glimpses as 
one would obtain or remember under circumstances in 
which the persons or objects observed would form parts 
of larger objects of consideration, while at the same time 
all of them, or, perhaps, he himself might be in motion. 

Notice, in the third place, that the descriptions are spe- 
cific. Of the few items that are mentioned, we have a 
very definite account in the "defiant mien," the "nodding 
casque," the shaking "shield " and " spear," the "mansion 
filled with wealth," the "broad fields fertile in corn," the 
"rows of trees," the "vines," the "large flocks," and the 
"expert" in wielding "the spear." There is no uncer- 
tainty of outline here, and therefore there is no doubt in 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 243 

the mind of the reader as to whether or not the author 
has taken his descriptions from nature. The whole im- 
pression conveyed is that he is describing the appearance 
of some particular man and homestead, and of no other. 

Notice also, in the fourth place, that the descriptions, 
while specific, are also typical. The features spoken of 
are such as to indicate the genus or kind of person or 
thing that is represented. So fully is this the case, that 
the few specific items mentioned, like the few bold out- 
lines of a painter's sketch, suggest every thing that the 
imagination really needs in order to make out a complete 
picture. This fact makes it possible for them to be few 
and definite, and yet distinctly representative. They do 
not include all the objects that might be seen, all that 
might be photographed, but only a few of them. At the 
same time, they are those which in the circumstances 
would be likely to attract any one's eye, those from 
which, and from which only, even if one saw the scene, he 
would be likely to draw his impressions with reference to 
the whole of it. Some of my readers may remember that 
Timothy Titcomb, 1 in giving advice to young men intend- 
ing to go into ladies' society, does not bid them attend 
mainly to that which shall make them appear intelligent 
or moral. Not at all. He writes from the view-point of 
a man of common-sense, understanding human nature. 
He advises them to attend to their neckties. The truth 
is, that our first view of a person always lights upon some 
one or two prominent features, the eyes, lips, smile, hand, 
gait, coat, or necktie, as the case may be, which, by ab- 
sorbing our attention, causes us to overlook every thing 
else. In fact, we always remember people, and houses, 
and localities, by these single and simple, often very ab- 

1 Timothy Titcomb's Letters : J. G. Holland. 



244 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

surd, things, which are instantly suggested whenever our 
minds recur to that for which, so far as concerns our recol- 
lection of it, they stand. It is mainly this fact with refer- 
ence to memory that Robert Bulwer Lytton illustrates in 
his touching little poem, Aux Italiens. 

******* 

Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love 

As I had not been thinking of aught for years ; 

Till over my eyes there began to move 
Something that felt like tears. 

I thought of the dress that she wore last time 

When we stood 'neath the cypress trees together, 

In that lost land, in that soft clime, 
In the crimson evening weather ; 

Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot), 

And her warm white neck, in its golden chain, 

And her full soft hair, just tied in a knot, 
And falling loose again. 

And the jasmine flower in her fair young breast, 
(0, the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine flower !) 

And the one bird singing alone to his nest ; 
And the one star over the tower. 

I thought of our little quarrels and strife, 

And the letter that brought me back my ring ; 

And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, 
Such a very little thing ! 

For I thought of her grave below the hill, 
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over ; 

And I thought " Were she only living still, 
How I could forgive her and love her ! " 

And I swear as I thought of her thus in that hour, 

And of how, after all, old things are best, 
That I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower 

Which she used to wear in her breast. 

It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, 
It made me creep, and it made me cold, 



.HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 245 

Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet 
Where a mummy is half unrolled. 

And I turned and looked : she was sitting there, 

In a dim box over the stage ; and drest 
In that muslin dress, with that full soft hair, 

And that jasmine in her breast. 

******* 
My thinking of her, or the music's strain, 

Or something which never will be exprest, 
Had brought her back from the grave again, 

With the jasmine in her breast. 

******* 
But O, the smell of that jasmine flower, 

And O, that music ! and O, the way 
That voice rang out from the dunjon tower : 

Non ti scordar di me, 
Non ti scordar di me ! 

It is in accordance with the workings of observation 
and memory illustrated here, that the poet, if he wishes to 
describe persons or things precisely as they would be re- 
called by a narrator under the circumstances, must be 
careful to mention but a few items in his representation, 
and these very specifically, so that they will seem to have 
been seen by him, and not merely imagined. He must 
choose these items too, so that they will be characteristic 
or typical of the whole nature of the objects or transac- 
tions of which they form parts. He must dwell upon 
those features which would naturally attract the attention 
of a spectator and impress him. These principles are so 
important, and so frequently illustrated in the poetry of 
Homer, that, before dismissing the subject, it will not be 
out of place to give several examples of them. Notice 
every thing in the following, but especially the italicized 
phrases : 



246 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The helm 
Of massive brass was vain to stay the blow : 
The weapon pierced it and the bone, and stained 
The brain with blood ; it felled him rushing on. 
The monarch stripped the slain, and, leaving them 
With their white bosoms bare, went on to slay 
Isus and Antiphus, King Priam's sons. 

— Iliad, 11 : Bryant's Trans. 

Meanwhile 
Antilochus against his charioteer, 
Mydon, the brave son of Atymnias, hurled 
A stone that smote his elbow as he wheeled 
His firm-paced steeds in flight. He dropped the reins, 
G lea jning with ivory as they trailed in dust. 
Antilochus leaped forward, smiting him 
Upon the temples with his sword. He fell 
Gasping amidst the sand, his head immersed 
Up to his shoulders — for the sand was deep, — 
And there remained till he was beaten down 
Before the horses' hoofs. 

— Iliad, 5 : Idem. 

And now the mighty spearman, Phyleus' son, 
Drew near and smote him with his trenchant lance 
Where meet the head and spine, and pierced the neck 
Beneath the tongue ; and forth the weapori came 
Between the teeth. He fell, and in the fall 
Gnashed with his teeth upon the cold, bright blade. 

— Iliad, 5 : Idem. 

Their beloved wives meanwhile, 
And their young children, stood and watched the walls, 
With aged men among them, while the youths 
Marched on, with Mars and Pallas at their head, 
Both wrought in gold, with golden garments on, 
Stately and large in form, and over all 
Conspicuous in bright armor, as became 
The gods ; the rest were of an humbler size. 

— Iliad, 18 : Idem. 

Meantime the assembled Greeks 
Sat looking where the horses scoured the plain 
And filled the air with dust. Idomeneus, 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 247 

The lord of Crete, descried the coursers first, 

For on the height he sat above the crowd. 

He heard the chief encouraging his steeds, 

And knew him, and he marked before the rest 

A courser, chestnut-colored, save a spot 

Upon the middle of the forehead, white, 

And round as the full moon. And then he stood 

Upright, and from his place harangued the Greeks. 

— Iliad, 23 : Idem. 

The following is a very different kind of description, but 
notice in it the same characteristics — what an air of reality 
is given to the whole by the specificness with which a few 
features only, and these the typical features likely to im- 
press the spectator, are mentioned. Speaking of Heca- 
mede it is said : 

First she drew forth a table fairly wrought, 

Of polished surface, and with steel-blue feet, 

And on it placed a brazen tray which bore 

A thirst-provoking onion, honeycomb, 

And sacred meal of wheat. Near these she set 

A noble beaker which the ancient chief 

Had brought from home, embossed with studs of gold. 

Four were its handles, and each handle showed 

Two golden turtles feeding, while below 

Two others formed the base. Another hand 

Could scarce have raised that beaker from its place, 

But Nestor lifted it with ease. The maid, 

Fair as a goddess, mingled Pramnian wine, 

And grated o'er it, with a rasp of brass, 

A goat's-milk cheese, and, sprinkling the white flour 

Upon it, bade them brink. With this they quenched 

Their parching thirst, and then amused the time 

With pleasant talk. Patroclus to the door 

Meantime, a god-like presence, came, and stood. 

The old man, as he saw him, instantly 

Rose from his princely seat and seized his hand, 

And led him in and bade him sit ; but he 

Refused the proffered courtesy, and said : 

— Iliad, 11 : Idem. 



248 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

William von Humboldt, in his criticism of Goethe's 
Hermann and Dorothea, directs attention to a similar 
characteristic in the passage in which Goethe makes his 
hero describe his first meeting with the heroine. Here are 
Hermann's words : 

Now my eyes, as I made my way along the new street there, 

Chanced to fall on a wagon, built of the heaviest timber, 

Drawn by a pair of steers of the largest stock and stoutest. 

By their side a maid with vigorous step was walking, 

Holding a long staff up to guide the strong pair onward, 

Starting them now, then stopping them, deftly did she guide them. 

One who was less of an artist, instead of revealing in a 
single glance the sturdy swinging gait and deftly wielded 
staff, which were enough to account for the young peas- 
ant's falling in love with Dorothea, would have given us 
a lengthy description of the color of her hair and eyes, 
the crook of her nose, the pout of her lips, the whiteness 
of her teeth, the number of the dimples on her cheeks, 
with a minute enumeration probably of all the articles of 
her wearing apparel, as in the following from The Lovers 
of Gudrun, by William Morris : 

That spring was she just come to her full height, 

Low-bosomed yet she was, and slim and light, 

Yet scarce might she grow fairer from that day ; 

Gold were the locks wherewith the wind did play, 

Finer than silk, waved softly like the sea 

After a three days' calm, and io her knee 

Wellnigh they reached ; fair were the white hands laid 

Upon the door-posts where the dragons played ; 

Her brow was smooth now, and a smile began 

To cross her delicate mouth, the snare of man ; 

For some thought rose within the heart of her 

That made her eyes bright, her cheeks ruddier 

Than was their wont, yet were they delicate 

As are the changing steps of high heaven's gate ; 

Bluer than gray her eyes were, somewhat thin 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 249 

Her marvellous red lips ; round was her chin, 

Cloven and clear wrought ; like an ivory tower 

Rose up her neck from love's white-veiled bower. 

But in such lordly raiment was she clad 

As midst its threads the scent of southlands had, 

And on its hem the work of such-like hands 

As deal with silk and gold in sunny lands. 

Too dainty seemed her feet to come anear 

The guest-worn threshold-stone. So stood she there 

And rough the world about her seemed to be, 

A rude heap cast up from the weary sea. 

— The Earthly Paradise. 

In a similar strain he describes Olaf : 

Great-limbed was Olaf Hauskuldson, well knit, 
And like a chief upon his horse did sit ; 
Clear-browed and wide-eyed was he, smooth of skin 
Through fifty rough years ; of his mother's kin, 
The Erse king's daughter, did his short lip tell, 
And dark-lashed, gray-blue eyes ; like a clear bell 
His voice was yet, despite of waves and wind, etc., etc. 

— Idem. 

Imagine a man telling a story in natural conversation, 
and going into these minute particulars. Imagine him 
noticing them in the presence of the characters described. 
To conceive of his doing it is almost impossible. There- 
fore the detailing of them imparts an air of unreality to 
the narrative ; and for this reason makes it also uninter- 
esting. There is much excellence, however, in these lines 
of Morris, aside from that which is here criticised. To 
recognize just how uninteresting this kind of description 
can be, as well as how much less it really tells us about 
the persons described than the kind of representation ex- 
emplified in Homer and in Hermann's glimpse of Doro- 
thea, let us take a passage less excellent in other regards 
than that of Morris. It is from Southey's Thalaba, by 
many considered his best poem : 



250 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The stranger was an ancient man, 
Yet one whose green old age 
Bore the fair characters of temperate youth ; 
So much of manhood's strength his limbs retained, 
It seemed he needed not the staff he bore. 
His beard was long and gray and crisp ; 
Lively his eyes and quick, 
And reaching over them 
The large broad eyebrow curled. 
His speech was copious, and his winning words 
Enriched with knowledge that the attentive youth 
Sat listening with a thirsty joy. 

Notice this also : 

Black were his eyes and bright ; 

The sunny hue of health 
Glowed on his tawny cheek ; 
His lip was darkened by maturing life ; 
Strong were his shapely limbs, his stature tall, 
Peerless among Arabian youths was he. 

— Idem. 

All that is given us in these descriptions might be 
said of a thousand men that everybody meets in a life- 
time. Notice, too, in the same poem, this microscopic 
description of a locust : 

The admiring girl surveyed 

His outspread sails of green ; 
His gauzy underwings, 
One closely to the grass-green body furled, 
One ruffled in the fall, and half unclosed. 

She viewed his jet-orbed eyes, 

His gossy gorget bright, 

Green glittering in the sun ; 

His plumy pliant horns, 

That nearer as she gazed 
Bent tremblingly before her breath. 
She marked his yellow-circled front 

With lines mysterious veined. 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 25 I 

This passage suggests a fifth characteristic of the Ho- 
meric descriptions, which probably is the underlying and 
determining cause of the last three. It is that they are 
progressive, — the fact that they always represent what is 
in motion. They are constructed in fulfilment of that 
principle of nature first noticed by Lessing in his cele- 
brated criticism on " The Laocoon," in accordance with 
which words represent ideas, feelings, events, — whatever 
it may be to which they give expression — that follow one 
another in the order of time. In the last passage quoted 
from Homer we are not told what Hecamede found on 
the table ; the poet pictures the maid in the act of spread- 
ing the table and putting the different articles of food on 
it. So in the following we are not told how Patroclus or 
Juno looked when dressed ; but we are told how they 
dressed themselves. The successive words in the descrip- 
tions are all made to represent successive acts. 

He spake : Patroclus, then in glittering brass, 
Arrayed himself ; and first around his thighs 
He put the beautiful greaves, and fastened them 
With silver clasps ; around his chest he bound 
The breastplate of the swift iEacides, 
With star-like points, and richly chased ; he hung 
The sword, with silver studs and blade of brass, 
Upon his shoulders, and with it the shield, 
Solid and vast ; upon his gallant head 
He placed the glorious helm with horsehair plume, 
That grandly waved on high. Two massive spears 
He took, that fitted well his grasp, but left 
The spear which great Achilles only bore, 
Heavy and huge and strong, and which no arm 
Among the Greeks save his could poise. 

— Iliad, 16 : Bryant. 

She entered in 
And closed the shining doors ; and first she took 
Ambrosial water, washing every stain 



252 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

From her fair limbs, and smoothed them with rich oil, 

Ambrosial, soft, and fragrant, which, when touched 

Within Jove's brazen halls, perfumed the air 

Of earth and heaven. When thus her shapely form 

Had been anointed, and her hands had combed 

Her tresses, she arranged the lustrous curls, 

Ambrosial, beautiful, that clustering hung 

Round her immortal brow. And next she threw 

Around her an ambrosial robe, the work 

Of Pallas, all its web embroidered o'er 

With forms of rare device. She fastened it 

Over the breast with clasps of gold, and then 

She passed about her waist a zone which bore 

Fringes an hundred-fold, and in her ears 

She hung her three-gemmed ear-rings, from whose gleam 

She won an added grace. Around her head 

The glorious goddess drew a flowing veil, 

Just from the loom, and shining like the sun ; 

And, last, beneath her bright white feet she bound 

The shapely sandals. Gloriously arrayed 

In all her ornaments, she left her bower. 

— Iliad, 14 : Idem. 

So when Homer describes a camp, he connects it with 
action ; we are told of a process of building or of demoli- 
tion. 

And ere the morning came, while earth was gray 
With twilight, by the funeral pile arose 
A chosen band of Greeks, who, going forth, 
Heaped round it from the earth a common tomb 
For all, and built a wall and lofty towers 
Near it, — a bulwark for the f}eet and host. 
And in the wall they fitted massive gates, 
Through which they passed an ample chariot-way ; 
And on its outer edge they sank a trench, — 
Broad, deep, — and planted it with pointed stakes. 
So labored through the night the long-haired Greeks. 

— Iliad, 7 : Idem. 

For those 
Trusting in portents sent from Jupiter, 
And their own valor, labored to break through 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 253 

The massive rampart of the Greeks ; they tore 

The galleries from the towers, and levelled down 

The breastworks, heaved with levers from their place 

The jutting buttresses which Argive hands 

Had firmly planted to support the towers, 

And brought them to the ground ; and thus they hoped 

To force a passage to the Grecian camp. 

— Iliad, 12 : Idem. 

Even in Homer's references to natural scenery, we find 
every thing in constant motion. Notice these traits in his 
description of the fire kindled by Vulcan in order to save 
the Greeks from the flood. 

The ground was dried ; the glimmering flood was staid. 

As when the autumnal north-wind, breathing o'er 

A newly watered garden, quickly dries 

The clammy mould, and makes the tiller glad, 

So did the spacious plain grow dry on which 

The dead were turned to ashes. Then the god 

Seized on the river with his glittering fires. 

The elms, the willows, and the tamarisks 

Fell, scorched to cinders, and the lotus-herbs, 

Rushes, and reeds, that richly fringed the banks 

Of that fair-flowing current, were consumed. 

The eels and fishes, that were wont to glide 

Hither and thither through the pleasant depths 

And eddies, languished in the fiery breath 

Of Vulcan, mighty artisan. The strength 

Of the greatest river withered. 

— Iliad, 21 : Idem. 

So a snow-storm seems interesting to him mainly be- 
cause it is doing something, and can be used as an illus- 
tration of something else that is doing something ; e.g., 

As when the flakes 
Of snow fall thick upon a winter-day, 
When Jove the Sovereign pours them down on men, 
Like arrows, from above ; — he bids the wind 
Breathe not : continually he pours them down, 



254 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And covers every mountain-top and peak, 
And flowery mead, and field of fertile tilth, 
And sheds them on the havens and the shores 
Of the gray deep ; but there the waters bound 
The covering of snows, — all else is white 
Beneath that fast-descending shower of Jove ; — 
So thick the shower of stones from either side 
Flew toward the other. 

— Iliad, 12 : Idem. 

Notice also the account of the action of the water in 
this, — how he portrays the struggle of Achilles with it, in 
such a way as to make the whole living and graphic. 
Here, too, the mental quality appears again. The water 
itself seems interesting to the narrator, mainly because of 
its connection with the actions of a man with whom 
he sympathizes. 

And then Achilles, mighty with the spear, 

From the steep bank leaped into the mid-stream, 

While, foul with ooze, the angry River raised 

His waves, and pushed along the heaps of dead, 

Slain by Achilles. These, with mighty roar 

As of a bellowing ox, Scamander cast 

Aground ; the living with his whirling gulfs 

He hid, and saved them in his friendly streams. 

In tumult terribly the surges rose 

Around Achilles, beating on his shield, 

And made his feet to stagger, till he grasped 

A tall, fair-growing elm upon the bank. 

Down came the tree, and in its loosened roots 

Brought the earth with it ; the fair stream was checked 

By the thick branches, and the prostrate trunk 

Bridged it from side to side. Achilles sprang 

From the deep pool, and fled with rapid feet 

Across the plain in terror. Nor did then 

The mighty river-god refrain, but rose 

Against him with a darker crest. . . 

. . . Askance 
He fled ; the waters with a mighty roar 
Followed him close. As when a husbandman 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 2$$ 

Leads forth, from some dark spring of earth, a rill 

Among his planted garden-beds, and clears 

Its channel, spade in hand, the pebbles there 

Move with the current, which runs murmuring down 

The sloping surface and outstrips its guide, — 

So rushed the waves where'er Achilles ran, 

Swift as he was ; for mightier are the gods 

Than men. As often as the noble son 

Of Peleus made a stand, in hope to know 

Whether the deathless gods of the great heaven 

Conspired to make him flee, so often came 

A mighty billow of the Jove-born stream 

And drenched his shoulders. Then again he sprang 

Away ; the rapid torrent made his knees 

To tremble, while it swept, where'er he trod, 

The earth from underneath his feet. He looked 

To the broad heaven above him and complained. 

— Iliad, 21 : Bryant's Trs, 

Look now at the way in which Homer describes the 
scenes by which some of his heroes pass in flight. How 
few comparatively are the objects noticed in them, yet 
how specifically do they indicate the typical features, 
which under the circumstances one would see and re- 
member, and from which, in the rapid glance that he 
would have of every thing, he would derive all his im- 
pressions. 

They passed the Mount of View, 
And the wind-beaten fig-tree, and they ran 
Along the public way by which the wall 
Was skirted, till they came where from the ground 
The two fair springs of eddying Xanthus rise, — 
One pouring a warm stream from which ascends 
And spreads a vapor like a smoke from fire ; 
The other even in summer, sending forth 
A current cold as hail, or snow, or ice. 
And there were broad stone basins, fairly wrought, 
At which in time of peace before the Greeks 
Had landed on the plain, the Trojan dames 



256 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And their fair daughters washed their sumptuous robes. 
Past these they swept ; one fled and one pursued, — 
A brave man fled, a braver followed close, 
And swiftly both. 

— Iliad, 22 : Idem. 

Meantime the Trojans fled across the plain 

Toward the wild fig-tree growing near the tomb 

Of ancient Ilus, son of Dardanus, — 

Eager to reach the town ; and still the son 

Of Atreus followed, shouting, and with hands 

Blood-stained and dust-begrimmed. And when they reached 

The Scaean portals and the beechen tree, 

They halted, waiting for the rear, like beeves 

Chased panting by a lion who has come 

At midnight on them, and has put the herd 

To flight, and one of them to certain death. 

* ^ * * * * * 

Thus did Atrides Agamemnon chase 
The Trojans ; still he slew the hindmost ; still 
They fled before him. Many by his hand 
Fell from their chariots prone, for terrible 
Beyond all others with the spear was he. 
But when he now was near the city wall, 
The Father of immortals and of men 
Came down from the high heaven, and took his seat 
On many-fountained Ida, 

— Iliad, n : Idem. 

Now contrast with these the following description. It 
is not a poor one of its kind ; but all must perceive that a 
poem characterized by many passages like it, could not be 
in the highest degree interesting. Such descriptions, on 
account of their lack of the qualities noticed in those of 
Homer, tend to interrupt the plot and the interest felt in 
its characters. Besides this, of the many items mentioned 
here, few are described with sufficient specificness to make 
us feel that they were really perceived, and not merely 
fancied. 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 257 

It was broad moonlight, and obscure or lost 

The garden beauties lay ; 

But the great boundary rose distinctly marked. 

These were no little hills, 

No sloping uplands lifting to the sun 

Their vineyards with fresh verdure, and the shade 

Of ancient woods, courting the loiterer 

To win the easy ascent ; stone mountains these, 

Desolate rock on rock, 

The burdens of the earth, 

Whose snowy summits met the morning beam 

When night was in the vale, whose feet were fixed 

In the world's foundations. Thalaba beheld 

The heights precipitous, 

Impending crags, rocks unascendible, 

And summits that had tired the eagle's wing : 

*' There is no way ! " he said. 

Paler Oneiza grew, 

And hung upon his arm a feebler weight. 

But soon again to hope 

Revives the Arabian maid, 

As Thalaba imparts the sudden thought. 

" I passed a river," cried the youth, 

" A full and copious stream. 

The flowing waters cannot be restrained ; 

And where they find or force their way, 

There we perchance may follow ; thitherward 

The current rolled along." 

So saying, yet again in hope 

Quickening their eager steps, 

They turned them thitherward. 

Silent and calm the river rolled along, 

And at the verge arrived 

Of that fair garden o'er a rocky bed, 

Toward the mountain base 

Still full and silent, held its even way. 

But farther as they went, its deepening sound 

Louder and louder in the distance rose, 

As if it forced its stream 

Struggling through crags along a narrow pass. 



258 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

And lo ! where, raving o'er a hollow course, 

The ever-flowing flood 

Foams in a thousand whirlpools. There adown 

The perforated rock 

Plunge the whole waters ; so precipitous, 

So fathomless a fall, 

That their earth-shaking roar came deadened up 

Like subterranean thunders. 

— Thalaba, 7 : Southey. 

The following description, similar in general character, 
is more interesting, because it is more specific and shorter: 

Onward amid the copse 'gan peep, 
A narrow inlet, still and deep, 
Affording scarce such breadth of brim, 
As served the wild-duck's brood to swim. 
Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 
But broader when again appearing, 
Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face 
Could on the dark-blue mirror trace ; 
And farther as the hunter strayed, 
Still broader sweep its channels made. 
The shaggy mounds no longer stood, 
Emerging from entangled wood, 
But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, 
Like castle girdled with its moat ; 
Yet broader fields extending still 
Divide them from their parent hill, 
Till each, retiring, claims to be 
An islet in an inland sea. 

— Lady of the Lake, 1 : Scott. 

But this is still more interesting, because it represents 
action that is closely connected with the plot. 

Then did Apollo and the god of sea 

Consult together to destroy the wall 

By turning on it the resistless might 

Of rivers. . . 

. . . nine days against the wall 

He bade their currents rush, while Jupiter 

Poured constant rain, that floods might overwhelm 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 259 

The rampart ; and the god who shakes the earth, 

Wielding his trident, led the rivers on. 

He flung among the billows the huge beams 

And stones which, with hard toil, the Greeks had laid 

For the foundations. Thus he levelled all 

Beside the hurrying Hellespont, destroyed 

The bulwarks utterly, and overspread 

The long, broad shore with sand. 

— Iliad, 12 : Bryant 's Trs. 

The principles that apply to these representations of 
persons and scenes in nature, apply also to conversa- 
tions in dramatic poems. All lengthy descriptions or 
declamatory passages that have nothing to do directly 
with giving definiteness, character, and progress to the 
plot, detract from the interest of the poem, considered as 
a whole. The effect of these things upon the form is the 
same as that of rubbish thrown into the current of a 
stream — it impedes the movement, and renders the water 
less transparent. This is the chief reason why the works 
of the dramatists of the age of the history of our literature 
commonly called classical, like Dryden, Addison, Rowe, 
Home, and Brooke, notwithstanding much that is ex- 
cellent in their writings, have not been able to maintain 
their popularity. Ordinary audiences do not go to the 
theatre to be preached at in this style : 

These are all virtues of a meaner rank — 
Perfections that are placed in bones and nerves. 
A Roman soul is bent on higher views : 
To civilize the rude, unpolished world, 
And lay it under the restraint of laws ; 
To make man mild and sociable to man ; 
To cultivate the wild, licentious savage 
With wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts, 
The embellishments of life ; virtues like these 
Make human nature shine, reform the soul, 
And break our fierce barbarians into men. 

— Cato, I, 4 ; Addison. 



260 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Some may suppose that the chief reason why such pas- 
sages as these, and those quoted from Southey, are not 
popular, is because they manifest so few evidences of the 
work of constructive imagination, by which is meant 
mainly that they contain so little figurative language. 

Yet, we have seen that some of Homer's descriptions 
are equally lacking in figures. It is not merely this that 
renders a description inartistic. It is its failure to be truly 
representative. For this reason the mere addition to it of 
figurative language would not remedy its defects. 

This fact, however, will be considered at full in the 
next chapters. This had better be closed with one or two 
quotations exemplifying, beyond what has been done in 
the preceding passages, how Homer carries the principles 
now under consideration into his illustrative representa- 
tion. In the descriptions used in order to exemplify the 
main thought in the following, will be found the same 
characteristics as in those making up the main thought 
in most of the preceding quotations. It will be noticed 
that the items forming the features of every separate 
figure, mentioned for the sake of comparison, are pre- 
sented in the same mental, fragmentary, specific, typical 
and progressive way with which we may now be supposed 
to have become familiar. 

The hero was aroused 

To fury fierce as Mars when brandishing 

His spear, or as a desolating flame 

That rages on a mountain-side among 

The thickets of a close-grown wood. His lips 

Were white with foam ; his eyes from underneath 

His frowning brows streamed fire ; and as he fought, 

Upon the hero's temples fearfully 

The helmet nodded. . . . 

Through the serried lines 
He could not break ; the Greeks in solid squares 



HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 26 1 

Resisted, like a rock that huge and high 

By the gray deep abides the bufferings 

Of the shrill winds and swollen waves that beat 

Against it. Firmly thus the Greeks withstood 

The Trojan host, and fled not. In a blaze 

Of armor, Hector, rushing toward their ranks, 

Fell on them like a mighty billow raised 

By the strong cloud-born winds, that flings itself 

On a swift ship, and whelms it in its spray. 

— Iliad, 15 : Bryant's Trs. 

Then Pallas to Tydides Diomed 
Gave strength and courage, that he might appear 
Among the Achaians greatly eminent, 
And win a glorious name. Upon his head 
And shield she caused a constant flame to play, 
Like to the autumnal star that shines in heaven 
Most brightly when new-bathed in ocean tides. 
Such light she caused to beam upon his crest 
And shoulders, as she sent the warrior forth 
Into the thick and tumult of the fight. 

— Iliad, 5 : Idem. 

All the Greeks 
Meanwhile came thronging to the appointed place. 
As swarming forth from cells within the rock, 
Coming and coming still the tribe of bees 
Fly in a cluster o'er the flowers of spring, 
And some are darting out from right to left. 
So from the ships and tents a multitude 
Along the spacious beach in mighty throngs 
Moved toward the assembly. 

— Iliad, 2 : Idem. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ALLOYED REPRESENTATION : ITS GENESIS. 

Alloy introduces Unpoetic Elements into Verse — All Classic Representation 
Pure — Tendencies in Poetic Composition leading to Alloyed Represen- 
tation — In Direct Representation — In Illustrative Representation — 
Lawful to enlarge by Illustrations an Idea Great and Complex or Small 
and Simple — Descriptions of a Meal — Sunset — Peasant — Sailor — How 
these Tendencies may introduce Alloy that does not represent — Exag- 
gerations in Love-Scenes — In Descriptions of Natural Scenery, etc. — 
In Allegorical Poems and Sensational Plays. 

AA^E will examine now the form of representation 
which, in contrast to pure, has been termed al- 
loyed. This latter, as has been said, while following in 
the main the methods of picturing the thoughts that are 
used in pure representation, always introduces something 
into the picture in addition to what would naturally be 
perceived in connection with circumstances like those that 
are being detailed. At first thought, it might be sup- 
posed that these additions woutd not greatly impair the 
poetry in which we find them. But the fallacy of this 
supposition will appear, when we recall that poetry is 
an art, and that all art is representative. It follows from 
this that the purer the representation, the purer will be 
the art, and in the degree in which any thing is added to 
the representation, — any thing, that is, of such a nature 
that under the circumstances it could not presumably 

262 



GENESIS OF ALLO YED REPRESENTA TION. 263 

have been perceived, — in that degree will the product be 
likely to lose its artistic qualities. 

Some who may not recognize the truth of this state- 
ment, when viewed from a theoretical standpoint, may, 
when viewed from a practical. Let us look at it in this 
way then : whatever is added to the representation must 
come, in the last analysis, from the artist ; and from him, 
when not exercising his legitimate artistic functions ; 
when, instead of giving us a picture of nature and man, as 
he finds them, he has begun to give us his own explana- 
tions and theories concerning them. Now all explana- 
tion and theories, as we know, are necessarily the out- 
growth — if not of ignorance or superstition — at least of 
the intellectual or spiritual condition of the age in which 
one lives. For this reason, to a succeeding age they are 
not satisfactory, even if they do not prove to be wholly 
fallacious; and a work of science or philosophy that is 
made up of them usually dies, because men outgrow their 
need of it, and do not care to keep it alive. A work of 
artistic poetry, on the contrary, lives because its pages 
image the phenomena of nature, and of human life, which 
can really be perceived, and most of these remain from 
age to age unchanged. A writer who confines himself to 
these, which alone can be used legitimately in representa- 
tion, is, as Jonson 1 said of Shakespear, " not of an age but 
for all time " ; and this fact can be affirmed of men like 
him alone. Out of the thousands of poems written in the 
past, only those have come down to us, and are termed 
classic, which are characterized by an absence of explana- 
tions and theories, and a presence of that kind of repre- 
sentation which has here been termed pure. How 
important, then, it is for the poet of the present to under- 

1 To the memory of my beloved master William Shakespear. 



264 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

stand just what the nature and requirements of this 
pure representation are, and what are the methods of 
rendering it alloyed that should be avoided. 

We shall start at the beginning of our subject, if we 
notice, first, certain influences tending to divert the poet 
from his legitimate work, and causing him to depart from 
the methods of pure representation. These will be con- 
sidered in the present chapter. 

Taking up first in order direct representation, it follows, 
from what has been said already, that composition in the 
plain language of this form can be nothing except prose, 
the moment the writer ceases to think in pictures ; the 
moment, therefore, that, without using figurative lan- 
guage, he begins to be didactic or argumentative. Notice 
how easy it would be to glide into prose from a passage 
like the following. All that saves it, as it is, are the pic- 
tures of William, of the two women, and of the old man, 
which, as we read it, rise up irresistibly before the im- 
agination. 

" O Sir, when William died, he died at peace 

With all men ; for I asked him, and he said, 

He could not ever rue his marrying me. 

I had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said 

That he was wrong to cross his father thus : 

1 God bless him ! ' he said, ' and may he never know 

The troubles I have gone through ! ' Then he turned 

His face and passed — unhappy thai; I am ! 

But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 

Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 

His father's memory ; and take Dora back, 

And let all this be as it was before." 

So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 

By Mary. There was silence in the room ; 

And all at once the old man burst in sobs : — 

" I have been to blame — to blame ! I have killed my son ! " 

— Dora : Tennyson. 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 26$ 

The next chapter will contain so many contrasted pas- 
sages of pure and alloyed representation in the direct 
form, that it would be superfluous to introduce any more 
of them here. Besides this,' whatever poetic principles 
their introduction would illustrate, can be brought out as 
well while we go on to consider what is a far more im- 
portant part of our present discussion, namely, the influ- 
ences tending to divert the poet from his legitimate work 
when composing in figurative language. 

As all illegitimate tendencies are usually developed in 
some way from legitimate ones, perhaps the best method 
of approaching our present subject is to start by recalling 
what has been said before with reference to the necessity, in 
order to express certain phases of thought, of a poet's 
writing in figurative language. From this necessity it 
follows that he will be impelled to use figures whenever, for 
any reason, he feels that plain language will not serve his 
purpose. Two circumstances, inclusive, in a broad way, 
of many others, will justify him, as we can see, in having 
this feeling : first, where the impression to be conveyed is 
very great or complex in its nature. Very often, under 
these circumstances, plain direct representation might not 
only fail to do justice to the subject, but might positively 
misrepresent it. Milton wished to convey an impression 
of the size and power of Satan. It would scarcely have 
been possible for him to do this adequately without mak- 
ing his representation illustrative ; and by taking this 
course he has furnished us with an example of a pure and 
legitimate use of this form. 

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate, 
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides 
Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 



266 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 

As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 

Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, 

Briareus, or Typhon, whom the den 

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 

Leviathan, which God of all his works 

Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream : 

Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam, 

The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff 

Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 

With fixed anchor in his scaly rind 

Moors by his side under the lea, while night 

Invests the sea, and wished for morn delays : 

So stretched out huge in length the arch-fiend lay, 

Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence 

Had risen or heav'd his head. 

— Paradise Lost, i. 

The second circumstance that justifies a writer in feeling 
that he must not use direct representation is this : — not 
the fact that the impression to be conveyed is too great 
or complex to be represented truthfully in this manner, 
but just the opposite : — the fact that it is too small and 
simple to be represented adequately in this manner. 
When the scene to be described is one that in itself is 
fitted to awaken the deepest and grandest feelings and 
thoughts, then, as in the concluding paragraph of " Paradise 
Lost," given a few pages back, direct representation is all 
that is needed. Wherever, in fact, the ideas to be pre- 
sented are sublime or pathetic in themselves, the one 
thing necessary is that the reader should realize them as 
they are ; and any indirectness in the style rather hinders 
than furthers this. A celebrated preacher once said that 
passages in his sermons that were full of thought he de- 
livered calmly, but when he came to passages that were 
destitute of it, he instinctively felt that it was time for 
him to " holler." A similar principle is apt to control style 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 267 

in poetry. Indeed, the main reason for the large pre- 
ponderance of direct over illustrative representation in the 
works of Homer and of the Greek tragedians, is un- 
doubtedly this, — that most of the persons and actions of 
which they treated were heroic in their nature. They 
needed only to be represented as they were, in order to 
awaken admiration. It is the boast of our modern times, 
however, that we have learned to take an interest in com- 
mon men and actions. The poet feels that he misses that 
which perhaps is noblest in his mission if he fails to help 
the humblest of his fellows, physically, mentally, socially, 
morally, and spiritually, by doing his best to lead them 
out of the condition of poor Peter Bell. He, as you 
may remember, 

Had danced his round with Highland lasses ; 
And he had lain beside his asses 
On lofty Cheviot Hills : 

And all along the indented coast, 
Bespattered with the salt-sea foam ; 
Where'er a knot of houses lay, 
On headland, or in hollow bay ; — 
Sure never man like him did roam ! 

He travelled here, he travelled there : — 
But not the value of a hair 
Was heart or head the better. 

****** 
In vain through every changeful year, 
Did Nature lead him as before ; 
A primrose by a river's brim, 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more. 

— Peter Bell : Wordsworth. 

Out of this condition it is the duty of the poet to bring 



268 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

mankind by revealing to them, by " the light 1 that never 
was on sea or land," the poetry that lies concealed in the 
surroundings and experiences of ordinary life. 

Inasmuch, however, as this poetry lies concealed in or- 
dinary life, the poet is compelled to do more than simply 
to represent ordinary life. He must make this appear to 
be more than it seems to be ; and he must do so by 
making more of his poetic form than can be done in 
direct representation. We all know how ladies taking up 
a temporay residence for the summer in small seaside cot- 
tages, erected without paint or plaster, make up for the 
lack of other beautifying elements, by tacking all over the 
walls Japanese fans and screens of innumerable hues, in- 
termingled with wreaths of evergreen and myrtle ; or 
how, when they rent furnished houses in which the colors 
of the carpets, chairs, and wall papers do not harmonize, 
they spread tidies, afghans, and ornaments of all possi- 
ble shades over sofas and mantles, so as to produce effects 
pleasing by way of combination and variety, where it is 
impossible to have simplicity aud unity. All this is an 
illustration of cheap ornamentation. Yet it is justifiable 
under the circumstances. The tendency producing it is 
exercised unjustifiably only when an architect or uphol- 
sterer, with an opportunity to rely upon more worthy 
methods, tries to produce similar results not as means but 
as ends. Illustrative representation in poetry is often pro- 
duced by bringing together all sorts of elements, very 
much as the Japanese fans are brought together in sea- 
side cottages ; and it is justifiable when it is necessary to 
make thought attractive which otherwise would not be so. 
To illustrate how poetry can make this sort of thought 
attractive, take this description of a luncheon in Tenny- 

1 Elegiac stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle : Woodsworth. 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 269 

son's Audley Court. In most of the passage we have 
direct representation ; but all the better for this reason, it 
serves to illustrate what I mean by saying that form can 
make the unpoetic seem poetic. What could be more un- 
poetic or commonplace than a meal ? Yet notice how 
by the introduction of picturesque elements like " wrought 
with horse and hound," " dusky," " costly made," " Like 
fossils . of the rock," "golden" "Imbedded," and the 
graphic account of the conversation, — all such as could be 
observed by one looking on, the poet has rendered the 
whole poetic. It is an admirable illustration of a legiti- 
mate way in which by richness of form a poet can make 
up for poverty of ideas. 

There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid 
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, 
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, 
And, half-cut down, a pasty costly-made, 
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, 
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks 
Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these, 
A flask of cider from his father's vats, 
Prime, which I knew ; and so we sat and ate, 
And talked old matters over ; who was dead, 
Who married, who was like to be, and how 
The races went, and who would rent the hall ; 
Then touched upon the game, how scarce it was 
This season ; glancing thence, discussed the farm, 
The fourfold system and the price of grain ; 
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, 
And came again together on the king 
With heated faces, till he laughed aloud ; 
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung 
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang. 

— Atidley Court: Tennyson. 

There is much more poetry in a sunset than in a lunch- 
eon. Yet both are ordinary occurrences ; and few can 



270 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

fail to recognize that it is the use of illustrative represen- 
tation in the following that has enabled Wordsworth to 
lift this particular sunset entirely above any thing at all 
ordinary. 

A single step, that freed me from the skirts, 
Of the blind vapor, opened to my view- 
Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! 
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
Was of a mighty city, — boldly say 
A wilderness of building, sinking far 
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, 
Far sinking into splendor, — without end ! 
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, 
With alabaster domes, and silver spires, 
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 
Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright, 
In avenues disposed ; there, towers begirt 
With battlements that on their restless fronts 
Bore stars, — illumination of all gems ! 

't was an unimaginable sight ! 

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf, 
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
Molten together and composing thus, 
Each lost in each, that marvellous array 
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge 
Fantastic pomp of structure without name, 
In fleecy fold voluminous enwrapped. 

* * * * \ * * * 

This little Vale a dwelling-place of Man 
Lay low beneath my feet ; 't was visible, — 

1 saw not, but. I felt that it was there. 
That which I sazo was the revealed abode 
Of Spirits in beatitude. 

— Excursion, 2 : Wordsworth. 

These quotations, though themselves containing noth- 
ing objectionable, will render it easy for us to understand 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATLON. 2J\ 

how naturally this tendency to crowd outside elements 
into the form passes into alloyed representation. In 
Longfellow's Evangeline, and Tennyson's Enoch Arden 
we have told us stories respectively of a peasant and 
a sailor. There is much in the surroundings, appearances, 
actions, thoughts, and feelings of people of these classes 
which is unpoetic, uninteresting, sometimes even repelling 
to persons sufficiently cultivated and refined to enjoy poe- 
try of the highest order. At the same time there are genu- 
inely poetic elements in almost every thing that has to do 
with human life. By making a great deal of these ele- 
ments, and very little or nothing at all of others, the poet, 
in a legitimate way, can cause that to seem attractive 
which otherwise might not seem so. Longfellow does 
this in the following passage from Evangeline. 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks, 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, 

Nodded in bright array, like holyhocks heavy with blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular cadence 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard, 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon, they sank into stillness ; 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors, 

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 

But closely connected with this rendering attractive of 
certain forms of life, through bringing some of its ele- 
ments to the front and keeping others in the background, 
is an endeavor to do the same, through introducing; into 
the description elements that could not possibly be sup- 
posed to be there. For instance, immediately following 
the passage from Evangeline just given, is one describing 
her father, and his thoughts as he sits by his fireside. 



272 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Indoors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer 

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreathes 

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him 

Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic, 

Darted his own huge shadow, aud vanished away into darkness. 

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair, 

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser 

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine. 

— Evangeline ; Longfellow. 

The question connected with our line of thought, sug- 
gested by this passage, is this : Would this peasant, brought 
up as he had been, and with his surroundings, be likely to 
think of " foes in a burning city," " gestures fantastic," 
" shields of armies," etc. ? If not, then the representa- 
tion is not pure. The passage indicates only an exceed- 
ingly slight tendency in the direction of alloyed repre- 
sentation ; but the very slightness of the tendency will 
enable us to trace it in its further development. Here is 
a passage from Tennyson's Enocli Arden : 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 
E'en to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world, — 
All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
He could not see, the kindly human face, 
Nor ever heard a kindly voice, but heard 
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, 
The league-long roller thundering on the reef, 
The moving whisper of huge trees that branched 
And blossomed in the zenith, or the sweep 
Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
Sat often in the seaward gazing gorge 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 273 

A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail. 
No sail from day to day, but every day 
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
Among the palms and ferns and precipices. 

Walter Bagehot, who quotes this passage in his " Lit- 
erary Studies," as an illustration of what he terms ornate 
poetry, says of this sailor : " The beauties of nature would 
not have so much occupied him. He would have known 
little of the scarlet shafts of sunrise and nothing of the 
long convolvuluses. As in ' Robinson Crusoe,' his own 
petty contrivances and his small ailments would have been 
the principal subjects to him." Such criticism may appear 
to some a little hypercritical. An extremely poetical 
sailor is certainly conceivable. Even if one could not 
possibly have had the thoughts here indicated, or at least 
not such thoughts exclusively, or to the extent represented 
by Tennyson, we feel that if any thing could justify a 
poet in misrepresenting the facts, it would be a desire to 
show a common ground of sympathy between readers of 
poetry and such a character, even at the expense of attrib- 
uting to the latter thoughts and feelings of a more refined 
nature than he really would have experienced. But to 
see what the tendency here exemplified can do, when, 
without any motive to justify it, it is- carried slightly fur- 
ther, notice, in the following, how the extravagance of the 
language, carried to the extreme of sentimentality, ruins 
the representation, because it is impossible to conceive of 
its being true to life. The fundamental fault of the pas- 
sage lies in the fact that the subject requires no such 
excess of illustration. A direct account of what two 
young people falling in love at first sight would actually 
do and say under the circumstances, would have been far 
more effective. Not recognizing this, the poet, — an inex 



274 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

perienced writer, who undoubtedly would have developed 
great excellence had he lived, — has put into the mouths 
of the two language possible only to a blase society beau 
and belle making love in play. According to the poem, 
a lady approaching discovers a slumbering poet and ex- 
claims : 

Ha ! what is this ? A bright and wandered youth, 
Thick in the light of his own beauty, sleeps 
Like young Apollo, in his golden curls ! 
At the oak-roots I 've seen full many a flower,' 
But never one so fair. A lovely youth 
With dainty cheeks and ringlets like a girl, 
And slumber-parted lips 't were sweet to kiss ! 
Ye envious lids ! . 

So, here 's a well-worn book 
From which he drinks such joy as doth a pale 
And dim-eyed worker, who escapes, in Spring, 
The thousand-streeted and smoke-smothered town, 
And treads awhile the breezy hills of health. 

[Lady opens the book, a slip of paper falls out, she reads.] 

Oh, 't is a sleeping poet ! and his verse 
Sings like the Siren-isles 
Hist ! he awakes . 

Walter (awakening). 
Fair lady, in my dream 
Methought I was a weak and lonely bird, 
In search of summer, wandered on the sea, 
Toiling through mists, drenched by the arrowy rain, 
Struck by the heartless winds ; at last, methought 
I came upon an isle in whose sweet air 
I dried my feathers, smoothed my ruffled breast, 
And skimmed delight from off the waving woods. 
Thy coming, lady, reads this dream of mine : 
I am the swallow, thou the summer land. 

Lady. 
Sweet, sweet is flattery to mortal ears, 
And, if I drink thy praise too greedily. 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 275 

My fault I '11 match with grosser instances. 
Do not the royal souls that van the world 
Hunger for praises ? Does not the hero burn 
To blow his triumphs in the trumpet's mouth ? 
And do not poets' brows throb feverous 
Till they are cooled with laurels ? Therefore, sir, 
If such dote more on praise than all the wealth 
Of precious-wombed earth and pearled-mains, 
Blame not the cheeks of simple maidenhood. 

— Life Drama, 2 : Alex. Smith. 

No wonder that this tough specimen of " simple 
maidenhood " should have prayed so fervently not to be 
blamed — putting her word into the plural also — for her 
cheek in using such language to the poet before an intro- 
duction to him, and in prefacing it too with a peep at his 
manuscript. 

There is an intimate connection between representation 
rendered inappropriate by the general character of the 
thought, and that rendered so by the smallness of the 
thought. In the following the same poet tells us of a 
youth who heard a woman singing. He had never seen 
her ; but 

When she ceased 
The charmed woods and breezes silent stood, 
As if all ear to catch her voice again. 
Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers, 
With awful expectation in his look, 
And happy tears upon his pallid face, 
With eager steps, as if toward a heaven, 
He onward went, and, lo ! he saw her stand, 
Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade. 
His footsteps startled her, and quick she turned 
Her face, — looks met like swords. He clasped his hands, 
And fell upon his knees ; the while there broke 
A sudden splendor o'er his yearning face ; 
'T was a pale prayer in its very self. 

****** 



276 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Thus like a worshipper before a shrine, 

He earnest syllabled, and, rising up, 

He led that lovely stranger tenderly 

Through the green forest toward the burning west. 

— Idem, 3. 

In our next quotation the same tendency has passed 
beyond the stage of sentimentality into that of obscurity. 
The thought in it is so small for the kind of representa- 
tion given it, as to be at times altogether invisible. It is 
intended to describe hot weather and a shower; and is a 
singular exemplification of the way in which extremes meet ; 
for while the poet evidently supposes himself to be illustra- 
ting his subject, he is really trying to explain it. His en- 
deavor to exercise his imaginative tendency has led him 
to argue ; and while he thinks himself influenced by a 
poetic motive, it is really prosaic. Thus his style is a fail- 
ure in two regards : it is both too figurative and too philo- 
sophical. 

Should Solstice, stalking through the sickening bowers, 
Suck the warm dew-drops, lap the falling showers ; 
Kneel with parched lip, and bending from its brink, 
From dripping palm the scanty river drink ; 
Nymphs ! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect, 
And high in air the electric flame collect. 
Soon shall dark mists with self-attraction shroud 
The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud ; 
Each silvery flower the streams aerial quaff, 
Bow her sweet head and infant harvests laugh. 

— The Botanic Garden, Part Eirst : E. Darwin. 

By comparing any of the clean-cut, clear descriptions of 
Homer with this passage, in which, on account of the far- 
fetched illustrative nature of the form, it needs often a 
second thought to detect what the poet is talking about, 
one will have a sufficiently forcible exemplification of the 
difference between poetic form that is representative, and 



GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 277 

that which, on account of the addition to it of elements 
having to do merely with the illustrative methods of pre- 
senting the thought, is not representative. 

The fault now under consideration characterizes, as will 
be noticed, all poems in which the subject does not 
justify the treatment, — from those like Spenser's Faerie 
Queene, (in which the allegory meant to illustrate the 
thought, and therefore an element merely of the form, is 
made to appear the principal thing, because developed to 
such an extent that one forgets all about what the subject 
of the poem is,) down to sensational plays, and romances 
of the lowest order, in which the characters, for serious, 
not comic purposes, are placed in situations and made to 
utter sentiments inconceivable under the circumstances. 
There is no necessity for quoting from such works here. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 

Alloy, if carrying to Extreme the Tendency in Plain Language, becomes 
Didactic ; if the Tendency in Figurative Language, it becomes Ornate 
— Didactic Alloy explains, and appeals to the Elaborative Faculty, not 
the Imagination — Rhetoric instead of Poetry — Examples of Didactic 
Alloy where Representation purports to be Direct — In Cases where the 
Thought is Philosophical — How Thought of the same Kind can be Ex- 
pressed Poetically — In Cases where the Thought is Picturesque, as in 
Descriptions of Natural Scenery — How similar Scenes can be described 
Poetically — Didactic Descriptions of Persons — Similar Representative 
Descriptions — How Illustrative Representation helps the Appeal to the 
Imagination — In Descriptions of Natural Scenery — Of Persons — The 
Sensuous and the Sensual. 

HP HE reader who has followed our line of thought to 
this point, probably understands by this time the 
general nature of the difference between pure and alloyed 
representation. But he cannot understand the extent of 
the inartistic influence which the latter introduces into 
poetry as a representative art, until he has traced its de- 
velopments a little further. That will be done for him in 
this and following chapters. 

It has been said that whatever is added to representa- 
tion of such a nature as to change it from pure to alloyed, 
must come from the poet. This is true, and yet he may 
not always be himself the primary source of these addi- 
tions. He may get them either from his own mind or 
from nature, — a term used here to apply to every thing ex- 

278 



THE DIDACTIC. 279 

ternal to himself. If he gets them from his own mind, he 
will carry into excessive development the tendency which 
has been termed the instinctive, underlying ejaculatory 
sounds and all plain language ; and his product will mani- 
fest a preponderance of the features making up the thought 
which he desires to express. If he gets his additions 
from nature, he will carry into excessive development the 
tendency, which has been termed the reflective, underlying 
imitative sounds and all figurative language ; and his 
product will manifest a preponderance of the features em- 
ployed in the form for the purpose of amplifying and 
illustrating his thought. The first tendency, carriea to an 
extreme, will deprive the form of representation, and 
make it explanatory or didactic ; the second will overload 
it with representation, and make it florid or ornate. 

Taking up these tendencies in their order, we will ex- 
amine now the former of them, and first, as exemplified 
in poetry modelled upon direct representation. In this 
form, as we have seen, the poet uses no similies nor 
metaphors. He states precisely what he wishes to say — 
only what he says, if put in the form of poetry, must 
represent his thought. If it merely present this, he gives 
us a product not of the ideal art of poetry, but of the 
practical art of rhetoric. This latter appeals to the mind 
through what Sir William Hamilton termed the elabora- 
tive faculty, and is characterized by a particularizing of 
details in explanatory words and clauses, termed amplifi- 
cation, — all of which details together enable the hearer to 
weigh the evidence that is offered, and to draw from it 
trustworthy conclusions. Poetry, on the contrary, appeals 
to the representative faculty, and is characterized by an 
absence of any more details or explanatory elements than 
are needed in order to form a picture, and this for the 



280 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

reason that nothing appeals so strongly to the imagination 
as a hint. At the same time, as poetry and rhetoric both 
communicate ideas, there is a constant tendency for the 
one to pass into the other, for the poet to forget that 
the poetical depends not upon ideas alone, but also upon 
the forms given to the ideas, — in fact, to forget that, 
while great poetry must necessarily embody great thoughts,, 
very genuine poetry, at times, may do no more than give 
to the merest " airy nothings a local habitation and a 
name." 

To exemplify what has been said, let us begin with 
some quotations from Wordsworth. They are specimens 
of rhetoric, pure and simple, presenting, but not in any 
sense representing, the thought. By consequence, they are 
almost wholly lacking in the suggestive and inspiring 
effects with which true poetry appeals to the imagination : 

O for the coming of that glorious time 

When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth 

And best protection, this imperial Realm, 

While she exacts allegiance, shall admit 

An obligation, on her part, to teach 

Them who are born to serve her and obey ; 

Binding herself by statute to secure 

For all the children whom her soil maintains 

The rudiments of letters, and inform 

The mind with moral and religious truth, 

Both understood and practised, — so that none, 

However destitute, be lefbto droop, 

By timely culture unsustained. 

% % :jc % * * * 

The discipline of slavery is unknown 
Among us, — hence the more do we require 
The discipline of virtue ; order else 
Cannot subsist, nor confidence, nor peace. 
Thus, duties rising out of good possessed, 
And prudent caution needful to avert 
Impending evil, equally require 



THE DIDACTIC. 28 1 

That the whole people should be taught and trained. 
So shall licentiousness and black resolve 
Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take 
Their place ; and genuine piety descend 
Like an inheritance from age to age. 

He % % ^ * * 

Vast the circumference of hope, — and ye 
Are at its centre, British Lawgivers ; 
. . . Your country must complete 
Her glorious destiny. Begin even now, 

Now when destruction is a prime pursuit 
Show to the wretched nations for what end 
The powers of civil polity were given. 

— Excursion, 10. 

Some may suppose that the thought presented in these 
passages is not fitted for representation, and be inclined 
to justify the poet's treatment of it on this ground. The 
truth is, however, that there is very little thought that 
cannot be expressed in a representative way. As a proof 
of this, look at the following passages from Tennyson's 
Princess. They contain thoughts of essentially the same 
character as those from the Excursion ; yet their forms, 
if not always those of direct representation, are, at least, 
those of representation of some sort, which is the im- 
portant matter, just now, for us to consider. 

O lift your natures up, 
Embrace our aims ; work out your freedom ! . . . 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed : 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
The sins of emptiness, gossip, and spite, 
And slander die. Better not be at all 
Than not be noble. 

Hs H= Ht * * * 

Let there be light, and there was light : 't is so : 
For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
And all creation is one act at once, 
The birth of light ; but we that are not all, 



282 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 

One act a phantom of succession : thus 

Our weakness somewhat shapes the shadow, Time ; 

But in the shadow will we work. 

But trim our sails and let old by-gones be, 
While down the stream that floats us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud ; for all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights. 

And knowledge in our own land make her free, 
And ever following those two crowned twins, 
Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 
Of Freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
Between the Northern and the Southern morn. 

— Princess : Tennyson. 

In the following, also, a very similar line of thought is 
not merely presented or stated, but represented or pic- 
tured : 

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue ; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the South wind rushing warm 
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm ; 

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world ; 

There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 

— Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 



THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 283 

The following, too, though it contains representation 
that is both illustrative and alloyed, will serve to show how 
the kind of thought expressed in the passage from the 
Excursion may be treated representatively. 

We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
The dark Earth follows, wheeled in her ellipse ; 
And human things returning on themselves, 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 

Ah ! though the times when some new thought can bud 
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, 
Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore 
Have ebb and flow, conditioning their march, 
And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 

When wealth no more shall rest in moulded heaps, 

But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 

In many streams to fatten lower lands, 

And light shall spread, and man be liker man 

Through all the seasons of the golden year, 

****** * 

Fly happy, happy sails, and bear the Press ; 
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross ; 
Knit land to land, and blowing heavenward, 
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
Enrich the markets of the golden year. 

But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
Through all the circle of the golden year ? 

— The Golden Year : Tennyson. 

As the principle under consideration is important, the 
reader will excuse one further quotation exemplifying 
better perhaps than any of those already considered the 
way in which ideas of this kind may be expressed very 
clearly and forcibly, and yet representatively. In the fol- 



284 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

lowing, the poet has to say that he is tired of the buzz and 
bustle of the world, and wishes to live in retirement. 
This is the prose of his statement. Notice now how he 
represents this thought, and in doing so turns it into poe- 
try. Most of the representation here, too, is direct and 
pure. 

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
In the hollow Lotus-land to live, and lie reclined 
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled 
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled 
Round their golden houses, girdled with a gleaming world ; 
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. 

— The Lotus Eaters : Tennyson. 

Could there be a more significant picture of the 
trouble of this life, or a more fitting climax for it than the 
helplessness of these " praying hands " ? Poetry does not 
reveal truth to us in logic, but in light. 

It is not only, however, in the expression of thought 
in itself unpicturesque, that the poet is in danger of 
giving us rhetoric instead of poetry. Even in descrip- 
tions of objects and persons in which, at first, it might be 
supposed that it would be impossible to do any thing 
except represent, the same tendency is manifest. In the 
following from Southey's Madoc in Wales, the descrip- 
tions scarcely include one feature that might not be true 
of any one of a score of rivers or mountains. Therefore 
we find them almost wholly lacking in the specificness 
noticed in Chapter XXII. as characterizing the descriptions 
of Homer. This fact alone might be enough to condemn 
them. But their lack of this trait is not the chief 
reason why they are mentioned here ; but because, owing 



THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 285 

to the lack of it, they read like something written in a 
man's study, not out of doors where he had a view of the 
objects delineated. In other words, they read like some- 
thing taken out of his own brain. For this reason they 
furnish good examples of direct representation in which 
too much attention relatively is given to the thoughts 
that come from the author as contrasted with that which 
comes from nature. 

The land bent westward soon, 
And, thus confirmed, we voyaged on to seek 
The river inlet, following at the will 
Of our new friend ; and we learnt after him, 
Well pleased and proud to teach what this was called, 
What that, with no unprofitable pains. 

******* 
At length we came 
Where the great river, amid shoals, and banks, 
And islands, growth of its own gathering spoils, 
Through many a branching channel, wide and full, 
Rushed to the main. 

— Madoc in Wales, 5 : Soul key. 

We travelled in the mountains ; then a plain 

Opened below, and rose upon the sight, 

Like boundless ocean from a hill-top seen. 

A beautiful and populous plain it was ; 

Fair woods were there, and fertilizing streams, 

And pastures spreading wide, and villages 

In fruitful groves embowered, and stately towns, 

And many a single dwelling specking it. 

As though for many years the land had been 

The land of peace. 

— Idem, 6. 

As contrasted with this, notice the following. In read- 
ing it, we feel that it definitely represents some real scene 
which we ourselves at once imagine that we see. There- 
fore it is better poetry than that in the quotation from 
Southey. 



256 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

On either side 
Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, 
With dikes on either hand, by ocean's self supplied. 
Far on the right, the distant sea is seen, 
And salt the springs that feed the marsh between ; 
Beneath an ancient bridge the straightened flood 
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud ; 
Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, 
That frets and hurries to the opposing side ; 
The rushes sharp that on the borders grow, 
Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below, 
Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow. 

— Lover s yourney : Crabbe. 

There is poetry, however, higher in its quality than this, 
— poetry in which we not only feel that the things de- 
scribed actually exist or existed, but that the man 
describing them saw at the supposed time of the descrip- 
tion just what he says that he saw. Crabbe's description 
reads a little as if the narrator had gone out some morn- 
ing and taken notes, as one would for a county map, and 
then had come back and copied off what he gives us. 
But in reading the following, from Tennyson's Garden- 
er s DcingJiter, we derive no such impression. In fact, a 
man taking notes would not confine himself to the things 
here mentioned. It is only natural to suppose, there- 
fore, that they were seen by the narrator just as they are 
represented in the picture. In another place may be 
explained what is meant by laying that this description 
for this reason gives expression to a poetic motive. At 
present, it is sufficient to direct attention to the fact that we 
have arrived now, through a different course, at the same 
conclusion as that reached while examining the poetry of 
Homer in Chapter XXII. The representation below seems 
real and life-like, because only a few things are mentioned, 
and these just the ones that would impress the mind of 



THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 287 

an observer under the circumstances. The description is 
not indefinite and characterless, like that of Southey, but 
specific and typical ; it is not complete and circumstan- 
tial, like the photographic picture of Crabbe, but fragmen- 
tary and suggestive — a rapid sketch of salient outlines, 
which the imagination is left to fill in for itself. There is 
some illustrative representation in it, but this need not 
injure it for our present purpose. 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
Although between it and the garden lies 
A league of grass, washed by a slow, broad stream, 
That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar, 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
Crowned with the minster-towers. 

— Gardener s Daughter : Tennyson. 

It will be well to close this phase of our subject with an 
example of representation that is not only pure, but, from 
beginning to end, direct. 

So saying, by the hand he took me, raised, 

And over fields and waters, as in air 

Smooth sliding without step, last led me up 

A woody mountain ; whose high top was plain, 

A circuit wide, enclosed, with goodliest trees 

Planted, with walks and bowers, that what I saw 

Of earth before scarce pleasant seem'd. Each tree 

Loaden with fairest fruit, that hung to the eye 

Tempting, stirr'd in me sudden appetite 

To pluck and eat ; whereat I wak'd, and found 

Before mine eyes all real, as the dream 

Had lively shadow'd ; here had new begun 

My wandering, had not he, who was my guide 



! 



288 



POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 



Up hither, from among the trees appear'd, 

Presence Divine. Rejoicing, but with awe, 

In adoration at his feet I fell. 

Submiss : He rear'd me, and, Whom thou sought'st I am, 

Said mildly, Author of all this thou seest 

Above, or round about thee, or beneath. 

— Paradise Lost, 8 : Milton. 

Now let us go back and take up examples in which, in 
descriptions of persons, too much attention, relatively, is 
paid to the thought as contrasted with the form. The 
following is a passage of this kind. Through a series of 
explanations, it appeals directly to the understanding, 
scarcely at all to the imagination. 

I admire 
Him and his fortunes, who hath wrought thy safety ; 
Yea as my mind predicts, with thine his own. 
Obscure and friendless he the army sought ; 
Bent upon peril in the range of death. 
Resolved to hunt for fame and with his sword 
To gain distinction which his birth denied. 
In this attempt unknown he might have perished, 
And gained with all his valor but oblivion. 
Now graced by thee his virtue serves no more 
Beneath despair. The soldier now of hope, 
He stands conspicuous : fame and great renown 
Are brought within the compass of his sword. 

— Douglas, 2 : Home. 

Here is another passage of the same sort : 

Turn up thine eyes to Cato ! 
There mayest thou see to what a godlike height 
The Roman virtues lift up mortal man. 
While good and just and anxious for his friends 
He \s still severely bent against himself ; 
Renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease, 
He strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat ; 
And, when his fortune sets before him all 
The pomp and pleasures that his soul can wish, 
His rigid virtues will accept of none. 

—Cato, 1,4: Addison. 



POETIC DESCRIPTIONS. 289 

Contrast with this the following description of Ogier 
the Dane in William Morris' Earthly Paradise. The 
representation here is just as direct as in the foregoing, 
but, in a sense not true of it, each sentence presents a 
picture. 

Great things he suffered, great delights he had, 
Unto great kings he gave good deeds for bad ; 
He ruled o'er kingdoms, where his name no more 
Is had in memory, and on many a shore 
He left his sweat and blood, to win a name 
Passing the bounds of earthly creature's fame. 
A love he won and lost, a well-loved son 
Whose little day of promise soon was done. 
A tender wife he had, that he must leave 
Before his heart her love could well receive. 

— Ogier the Dane. 

Of course some will think that these lines are not far 
removed from the level of prose. But they could not 
well be made more poetic without using illustrative repre- 
sentation, the introduction of which into passages of this 
kind is much the best way of making them appeal to the 
imagination. To recognize this fact one has only to com- 
pare the following descriptions of natural scenery with 
those given a few moments ago. The first deviates only 
slightly from the methods of direct representation. 

In front 

The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near, 
The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, 
Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light ; 
And in the meadows and the lower grounds 
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn, — 
Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds, 
And laborers going forth to till the fields. 

— The Prelude, 4 : Wordsworth. 

In the second the figures stand out more clearly : 



29O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

At my feet 
Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. 
A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved 
All over this still ocean ; and beyond, 
Far, far beyond, the solid vapors stretched, 
In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, 
Into the main Atlantic, that appeared 
To dwindle, and give up his majesty, 
Usurped upon far as the sight could reach. 

— Prelude, 14 : Wordsworth. 

Now look at the effects of illustrative representation 
upon descriptions of persons, as in this : 

O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 

The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword : 

The expectancy and rose of the fair State, 

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 

The observed of all observers. 

— Hamlet, iii., 1 : Shakespear. 

And in this : 

He was not born to shame : 
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit ; 
For 't is a throne where honor may be crowned 
Sole monarch of the universal earth. 

— Romeo and Juliet, iii., 2 : Idem. 

And in these series of pictures presented to the imagL 
nation in Sir Richard Vernon's description of Prince 
Harry and his troops : 

All furnished, all in arms ; 
All plumed like estridge^ that wing the wind ; 
Bated like eagles having lately bathed ; 
Glittering in golden coats, like images ; 
As full of spirit as the month of May, 
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer ; 
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 
I saw young Harry, — with his beaver on, 
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, — 
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, 
And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 



POETIC DESCRIPTIONS. 29 1 

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, 

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 

And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

— I Henry IV,, iv., I : Shakespear. 

Notice, too, to what an extent the element of beauty is 
introduced into the following, through the use of illus- 
trative representation : 

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose 

That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 

And blown across the walk. One arm aloft — 

Gowned in pure white, that fitted to the shape — 

Holding the brush, to fix it back, she stood. 

A single stream of all her soft brown hair 

Poured on one side : the shadow of the flowers 

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 

Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — 

Ah, happy shade ! — and still went wavering down, 

But ere it touched a foot that might have danced 

The green sward into greener circles, dipt 

And mixed with shadows of the common ground ! 

But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunned 

Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, 

And doubled his own warmth against her lips, 

And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 

As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 

She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 

— The Gardener s Daughter : Tennyson. 

Milton says that poetry must be simple, sensuous, and 
passionate. The above certainly meets all these require- 
ments. Read this too from Shakespear's Antony and 
Cleopatra : . 

I will tell you. 
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
Burned on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that 
The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were silver ; 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
The water, which they beat, to follow faster, 



292 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 

It beggared all description : she did lie 

In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue) 

O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 

The fancy out-work nature : on each side her 

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 

With divers colored fans, whose wind did seem 

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 

And what they did, undid. . . . 

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, 

So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes, 

And made their bends adoring : at the helm 

A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle 

Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands 

That yarely frame the office. From the barge 

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 

Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast 

Her people out upon her ; and Antony, 

Enthron'd i* th' market-place, did sit alone, 

Whistling to th' air ;, which, but for vacancy, 

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 

And made a gap in nature. 

— Antony and Cleopatra, ii., 2 : Shakcspcar. 

Perhaps no poetical passage could exemplify better 
than this that which distinguishes the sensuous from the 
sensual. Under circumstances which some of our modern 
poets would think would justify them in throwing every 
shred of drapery overboard, it reveals nothing that the 
most delicate taste cannot enjoy. The picture appeals 
solely to the imagination, and to nothing lower, which 
proves that Shakespear, although a poet, had enough 
practical sense to know that verse which does not appeal 
to the highest aesthetic nature cannot be in the highest 
sense artistic. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 

Illustrations that are not always necessarily representative — Their Develop- 
ment gradually traced in Descriptions of Natural Scenery — Practical 
Bearing of this on the Composition of Orations — Why Common People 
hear some gladly and others not at all — Obscure Styles not Brilliant — 
Examples of Obscure Historical and Mythological References in Poetry 
— Alloyed Representation Short-lived — How References to possibly 
unknown Things are made in Poetry that lives — Mixture of Main and 
Illustrating Thought so as to destroy Representation — Examples of how 
this Result may be prevented. 

TT must not be supposed that a poet, even though he 
uses illustrative representation, can overcome — merely 
by doing this — the tendency in his verse to pay too much 
attention relatively to thought as contrasted with form, 
and thus to make his representation not pure but alloyed. 
Alloyed illustrative representation is a fault on a larger 
scale, similar to that of the " blending " of metaphors in 
which plain and figurative language are both used with 
reference to the same object in the same clause or sen- 
tence (see Chapter XVIII. ). To understand the nature of 
this fault we must go back to pure representation for a 
moment. The sixth line of the following is a departure 
from pure representation. It expresses what could not 
have been perceived : it explains. 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 

293 



294 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 

Remorsefully regarded through his tears, 

And would have spoken, but he found not words. 

— Mort D' Arthur : Tennyson. 

Even in Homer, notwithstanding assertions made to 
the contrary, we find exceptional passages identical in 
character with this : 

Back he sprang, 
Hiding amid the crowd, that so the Greeks 
Might not behold the wounded limb, and scoff. 

— Iliad, 12 : Bryant's Trs. 

This last line is not characteristic of Homer. But there 
are numberless ones like it in the works of modern writers, 
for the reason that all of us modern people are more ac- 
customed than the ancient to look beneath the surface of 
things ; and therefore we are more prone in our descrip- 
tions to assign real or imaginary motives to the actions of 
those whom we are watching. The moment, however, 
that this analyzing of motives becomes characteristic of 
description, the style is evidently in danger of becoming 
less representative. To show the effect produced upon it, 
notice this quotation from Crabbe's Parish Register. It 
is certainly poetry ; series of pictures are called up as we 
read it ; the general is embodied in the concrete ; the ver- 
sification adds to the interest that we take in the ideas 
expressed in it ; and yet nothing could be more unlike the 
poetry of Homer; and this because it is not pure repre- 
sentation, but representation alloyed with much that is 
merely a direct presentation of the writer's own thoughts. 

Phoebe Dawson gayly crossed the green ; 

In haste to see and happy to be seen ; 

Her air, her manners, all who saw, admired, 

Courteous though coy, and gentle though retired ; 



THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 295 

The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed, 
And ease of heart her every look conveyed ; 
A native skill her simple robes expressed, 
As with untutored elegance she dressed ; 
The lads around admired so fair a sight, 
And Phoebe felt, and felt she gave, delight. 

* ;K * * ♦ * 

Lo ! now with red rent cloak and bonnet black, 

And torn green gown loose hanging at her back, 

One who an infant in her arms sustains, 

And seems in patience striving with her pains, 

Pinched are her looks, as one who pines for bread, 

Whose cares are growing, and whose hopes are fled ; 

Pale her parched lips, her heavy eyes sunk low, 

And tears unnoticed from their channels flow ; 

Serene her manner, till some sudden pain 

Frets the meek soul, and then she 's calm again. « 

To understand how this explanatory poetry, in which 
thought that is not at all representative is constantly 
being thrust into the form, can be produced even when 
figurative language is used, let us trace the gradual de- 
velopment of the tendency from its beginning. In the 
following description of evening, analogies are drawn 
between certain effects usually seen in connection with 
evening, and certain others usually seen in connection 
with human beings. In each case, however, only such 
effects are mentioned as are externally perceptible, like 
those represented in the words twilight, silence, Hesperus, 
and moon on the one hand, and in the words still, gray, 
livery, clad, accompanied, pleased, led, rode, rising, majesty, 
and apparent queen, on the other. For this reason, as we 
read the description, the picture of what is done by a hu- 
man being, as well as of the evening effect to which this 
is likened, comes at once before the imagination. 

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray 
Had in her sober livery all things clad ; 



296 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 
They to their grassy couch , these to their nests, 
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nighingale ; 
She all night long her amorous discant sung ; 
Silence was pleased ; now glowed the firmament 
With living sapphires ; Hesperus that led 
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. 

— Paradise Lost, 4 : Milton. 

A similar analogy is given us in the following; but in 
certain places, somewhat subtle to detect, as in the words 
needing, suffices, and ostentatious, the appearances of the 
natural objects mentioned are likened not to what is 
perceptible in human beings, but to imperceptible motives 
which can only be surmised by an observer. The harm done 
to the representation by such words happens, in this pas- 
sage, to be very evident. For, in the end, the last of them, 
ostentatious, runs the poet, as it seems, entirely off his track. 
That it is less ostentatious to wear a moon or jewel in a 
zone than on high, is inferred, not perceived by him, and, 
in order to give us his view of the Evening's modesty, he 
apparently forgets all about his picture of her in the west ; 
for he says that the low moon, which decorates her, is 
of an ampler round. But the evening moon never is 
this except when in the east. He may mean, indeed, the 
dim old moon encircling as it v does at times the crescent; 
but few would derive this impression from his words. Or 
he may mean to have the round refer to the zone of the 
Evening herself, and so make her corpulent enough to fit 
the girdle of the whole horizon ! But whatever he may 
mean, the moment we try to frame a picture from this or any 
of his later phrases, we find that the alloy at first introduced 
very slightly has finally ruined his picture altogether. 



THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 297 

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ; 

Return, sweet Evening, and continue long ! 

Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, 

With matron step slow-moving, while the Night 

Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed 

In letting fall the curtain of repose 

On bird and beast, the other charged for man 

With sweet oblivion of the cares of day : 

Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid, 

Like homely feathered Night, of clustering gems ; 

A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow, 

Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 

No less than hers, not worn indeed on high 

With ostentatious pageantry, but set 

With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 

Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 

— The Task j Winter Evening : Cowper. 

A little further development of the tendency under 
consideration leads to a style in which there appears to 
be in the figures still less distinctness of representation. 
As we read the following, the imagination does not per- 
ceive clearly whether the orb, ocean, Vesper, night, clouds, 
breezes, moon, etc., are meant to be likened to human or to 
some other beings ; nor is there any thing to tell us why 
these beings act as is indicated. That is to say, we fail to 
see pictures here, because the representation is alloyed by 
the introduction of too many of the thoughts of the 
writer. Instead of referring us to what can be seen in a 
sentient being, to which a material object is compared, he 
refers us to what may or may not be an explanation of 
w 7 hat might be seen in such a being. Men sometimes ^r- 
get — not often, however, — because they are hushed. So, 
he says, it is with the ocean ; and the same principle is 
exemplified in many other of his words. 

The sun's bright orb, declining all serene, 

Now glanced obliquely o'er the woodland scene ; 



298 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART, 

Creation smiles around ; on every spray 
The warbling birds exalt their evening lay ; 

* * * * * * 
The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave, 
To the green ocean roll with chiding wave. 
The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar, 
But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore. 

* * * * * . * 
While glowing Vesper leads the starry train, 
And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main, 
Emerging clouds the azure east invade, 

And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade ; 

***** * 

Deep midnight now involves the livid skies, 
When eastern breezes, yet enervate, rise ; 
The waning moon behind a watery shroud, 
Pale glimmer'd o'er the long-protracted cloud ; 
A mighty halo round her silver throne 
With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone ; 
This in the troubled sky full oft prevails, 
Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales. 

— Shipwreck, I : Falconer. 

The same indistinctness of representation, though with 
less in it of the explanatory element, characterizes the 
poetry of Thomson. Here is what he has to say of an 
evening : 

The western sun withdraws the shorten'd day ; 

And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky, 

In her chill progress, to the ground condensed 

The vapors throws. Where creeping waters ooze, 

Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, 

Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along 

The dusky mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon, 

Full-orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds, 

Shows her broad Visage in the crimson'd east. 

Turn'd to the sun direct, her spotted Disk, 

Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, 



THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 299 

And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 

A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again, 

Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. 

Now through the passing Cloud she seems to stoop, 

Now up the pale Cerulean rides sublime. 

Wide the pale Deluge floats, and, streaming mild 

O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale, 

While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, 

The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 

Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. 

— Seasons ; Autumn. 

There is a practical bearing of the tendency under con- 
sideration upon rhetoric and oratory. Certain public 
speakers like F. W. Robertson, Beecher, and Spurgeon 
are able to hold the attention of both the cultivated and 
the uncultivated ; others equally great in their way, like 
Everett, Storrs, and James Martineau, appeal only to the 
cultivated. Why is this ? Of course their thought, aside 
from their style, has something to do with it, but is there 
not something in their style also that accounts for it ? If 
we examine the rhetoric of orators of the former class, we 
find that the presentation of the thought in one clause or 
sentence is seldom mixed with its representation in an- 
other ; in short, that whatever representation is attempted 
is pure. Robertson, for instance, says in one of his ser- 
mons : 

" As the free air is to one out of health the cause of 
cold and diseased lungs, so to the healthy man it is a 
source of great vigor. The rotten fruit is sweet to the 
worm, but nauseous to the palate of man. It is the same 
air and the same fruit, acting differently upon different 
beings. To different men a different world : to one all 
pollution ; to another all purity." 

And Beecher says, as reported in the " Life Thoughts " : 

" But when once faith has taught the soul that it has 



300 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

wings, then it begins to fly, and, flying, finds that all God's 
domain is its liberty. And as the swallow that comes 
back to roost in its hard hole at night is quite content, so 
that the morning gives it again all the bright heavens for 
its soaring ground, so may men close quartered and 
cramped in bodily accommodations be quite patient of 
their narrow bounds, for their thoughts may fly out every 
day gloriously. And as in autumn these children of the 
chimney gather in flocks and fly away to heavens without 
a winter, so men shall find a day when they too shall mi- 
grate ; and rising into a higher sphere without storm or 
winter, shall remember the troubles of this mortal life, as 
birds in Florida maybe supposed to remember the North- 
ern chills which drove them forth to a fairer clime." 

This last is representation as pure as any thing in Ho- 
mer. Beecher's pictures are equally pure, too, in his 
metaphors. " A lowly home has reared many high na- 
tures." " The heart of friends is the mirror of good 
men," etc. 

In the rhetoric of the other class of orators, however, 
the representation is alloyed with presentation to such an 
extent that minds unacquainted with the methods of lit- 
erary workmanship do not always recognize either the 
illustrating picture and enjoy it, or the illustrated thought, 
which seems to them to be merely lumbered by material 
in which others see pictures. x Nothing could be finer of 
its kind than the "following from Dr. Storr's address on 
"The Early American Spirit " ; yet notice how both pic- 
tures and thoughts are affected by the way in which they 
are welded together : 

" All of them came out of communities which had had 
to face portentous problems, and which were at the time 
profoundly stirred by vast moral and political forces. 



REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION. 30 1 

They bore them imbedded in their consciousness, entering 
whether articulated or not, with a dominant force into 
their thought, into their life. They transported to these 
coasts, by the simple act of transferring their life hither, 
a power and a promise from the greatest age of European 
advancement. They could not have helped it if they 
would. They could more easily have left behind the 
speech which they had learned in childhood than they 
could have dropped on their stormy way across the ocean 
the self-reliance, the indomitable courage, the constructive 
energy, and the great aspiration, of which the lands they 
left were full. 

* * -* * -x- * * 

" It is easy to exaggerate their religious enthusiasm till 
all the other traits of their characters are dimmed by its 
excessive brightness. Our filial pride inclines us to this ; 
for, if we could, we should love to feel, all of us, that we 
are sprung from untitled nobles, from saints who need no 
canonization, from men of such heroic mould, and women 
of such tender devoutness that the world elsewhere was 
not worthy of them ; that they brought to these coasts a 
wholly unique celestial life, through the scanty cabins 
which were to it as a manger and the quaint apparel which 
furnished its swaddling clothes ; that airs Elysian played 
around them, while they took the wilderness as was said 
of the Lady Arabella Johnson, ' on their way to heaven.' " 

There is. nothing obscure in this style to a cultivated 
man, but there is to an uncultivated one, because, while 
composed in a representative style, it is not in the highest 
sense representative. It degenerates very easily, too, into 
a style in which, even among the cultivated, the figures 
hinder rather than help the presentation of the thought. 
In the following we have an example of this effect, a pas- 



302 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

sage in many respects admirably composed, but ordinary 
people will be obliged to think twice before understanding 
what it means. " Vice has this additional condemnation, — 
that the present is dogged and hunted down by the evil 
companionship of the past, that its words have the taint 
and its suggestions the stain of a worn-out debauch ; that 
it cannot shake itself loose from the foul memories which 
hang about it, nor rebuke the malignant and sneering 
devils now evoked even by the purest objects." 

This is a method of writing not uncommon in our 
day, and it is called brilliant. But no style is really bril- 
liant, the figures and ideas of which do not stand out in 
bright light and clear relief ; and no writer of the first class, 
notwithstanding the example of Carlyle, and, to some 
extent, of Emerson, obscures his thought by an endeavor 
to render it poetically representative. We have found 
how true this is as applied to the poetry of the best 
writers ; it is equally true as applied to their prose. The 
fact is that a man who knows best what poetry is, knows 
best what poetry is not ; and when he tries to write prose 
he gives men the benefit of his knowledge. Nothing, 
indeed, can be more simple and direct than the prose of 
Shakespear, Coleridge, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Byron. 
A man judging from it might suppose that these writers, 
as compared with men like Professor Wilson, Hartley 
Coleridge, and Carlyle, had but little representative 
ability. 

At present, however, we are dealing w r ith poetry. The 
bearing upon it of what has been said is this, — that mod- 
ern poetry, like modern prose, tends to alloyed represen- 
tation. The similarity of the following poetry and the 
last of our prose quotations will be recognized at once ; 
also that the same tendency underlies both, viz., the 



REPRESENTA TION AND PRE SENT A TION. 303 

crowding together of thought and illustration in the form, 
in such a way that neither of the two stands forth in clear 
relief. Here the tendency is only slightly suggested : 

O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires ! 

Is there none left of thy staunch Mayflower breed ? 
No spark among the ashes. of thy sires, 

Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed ? 
Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, 

And writhe through slimy ways to place and power ? — 
How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap 

Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower ? 
O for one hour of that undaunted stock 
That went with Vane and Sidney to the block ! 

O for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, 

With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff 

From the Lord's threshing-floor ! Yet more than half 
The victory is attained, when one or two, 

Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, 

Beside thy sepulchre can abide the morn, 
Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew. 

— To yohn G. Palfrey : Lowell. 

Here there is a much further development of the ten- 
dency : 

Meantime, just meditate my madrigal 
O* the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe ! 
What, dullard ? we and you in smothery chafe, 
Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin 
The Horrid, getting neither out nor in, 
A hungry sun above us, sands that bung 
Our throats, — each dromedary lolls a tongue, 
Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap, 
And you 'twixt tales of Potaphar's mishap, 
And sonnets on the earliest ass that spoke, 
Remark, you wonder any one needs choke 
With founts about ! Potsherd him, Gibeonites ! 
While awkwardly enough your Moses smites 
The rock, though he forego his Promised Land, 



304 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and 
Figure as Metaphysic Poet ... ah ! 
Mark ye the dim first oozings ? Meribah ! 
Then, quaffing at the fount, my courage gained, 
Recall — not that I prompt ye — who explained 
" Presumptuous ! " interrupts one. 

— Sordello, 3 : R. Browning. 

In addition to what has been said already, it will be 
noticed that in the first of these quotations, phrases like 
Sinai fires, Mayflower breed, whiff of Naseby, Puritan besom, 
etc., and in the second, words like Zin the Horrid, Potaphar s, 
ass, Gibeonites, Moses, Meribah, etc., call up no definite pic- 
tures, though at first they seem to do so. They merely 
call up ideas, which, in turn, call up pictures to the poet's 
mind, on account of the facts which he has come to asso- 
ciate with these words. They call up the same ideas in the 
minds of others, only so far as these happen to have the 
same associations with the terms that the poet has. But 
suppose the people of India or China, or of any clime or 
age having no such associations, were to read the poetry; 
for them there would be no pictures represented — scarcely 
any ideas presented by this kind of language. In saying 
this, it is not meant that all allusions to such things as 
are mentioned here for the sake of illustration should 
be banished from poetry ; it is meant merely that this 
sort of material should not be crowded into the form in 
such a way as to interfere with clearness of representa- 
tion. Some of the allusions, with very slight alterations, 
might be made intelligible and forcible to readers the 
most ignorant of the facts mentioned, and the most 
devoid of sympathy with the principles exemplified by 
them. All of the allusions would injure the poetry less, 
if they stood in passages by themselves, instead of being 
crowded, as they are, into every part of it. In that case 



REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION. 305 

there might be, aside from them, enough of pure repre- 
sentation in the poetry to render it of permanent and 
universal interest. Some of us, perhaps, have seen old 
paintings, the costumes in which, representing the fash- 
ions of the day, made the figures seem almost ridiculous ; 
but, notwithstanding this, the faces of the forms thus 
clothed, because pure representations of nature, were 
beautiful or attractive. We have seen, also, pictures of 
North American Indians, in which not only the forms 
were so robed, but the faces so painted, that what may be 
termed the alloyed representation of their day, left in its 
portraiture no pure representation of nature whatsoever 
for us really to admire. The kind of poetry of which we 
have just been treating, is in danger at some time of pro- 
ducing similar effects. Often not even in small, scattered 
parts of it, is there any pure representation. When, 
therefore, the fashion of the time to which it is addressed 
goes by, nothing will be left to render it of permanent in- 
terest. We come back here, therefore, to the place where 
we started. Art is representative, and that which is not 
representative in the highest sense does not meet the re- 
quirements of art, and therefore cannot live as true art 
does. Allusions in poetry that lives are separated from 
the main thought, as in the following, which, though not 
wholly to be commended, can be read with intelligence 
even by one who does not recall the particulars of the 
myths to which reference is made. 

Thus saying, from her husband's hand, her hand 
Soft she withdrew ; and like a wood-nymph light, 
Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train, 
Betook her to the groves, but Delia's self 
In gait surpassed, and goddess-like deport, 
Though not as she with bow and quiver armed, 



306 poetry as a representative art. 

But with such gard'ning tools as art, yet rude, 
Guiltless of fire had form'd, or angels brought. 

— Paradise Lost, 9 : Milton. 

Not less but more heroic than the wrath 
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued 
Thrice fugitive about Troy walls : or rage 
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd, 
Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that so long 
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's son. 

— Idem, 9. 

Sometimes, too, such allusions in the best poetry, are 
explained or rendered picturesque, as in the following: 

Do you believe me yet, or shall I call 

Antiquity from the old schools of Greece 

To testify the arms of chastity ? 

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, 

Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste, 

Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness 

And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought 

The frivolous bolt of Cupid ; gods and men 

Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen o' th' woods; 

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield, 

That wise Minerva wore, unconquer'd virgin, 

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congeal'd stone, 

But rigid looks of chaste austerity, 

And noble grace that dash'd brute violence 

With sudden adoration and blank awe ? 

— Com us : Milton. 

It is not merely in historical or mythological allusions, 
however, that the main thought of a passage can be so 
mixed with the illustrating figures as to destroy their 
representative character. The same tendency will be 
recognized in the following: 

Yes, the pine is the mother of legends ; what food 

For their grim roots is left when the thousand-yeared wood — 

The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall arches spring 

Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the wing 



REPRESENTA TION AND PRESENTA TION. 307 

From Michael's white shoulder — is hewn and defaced 

By iconoclast axes in desperate waste, 

And its wrecks seek the ocean it prophesied long, 

Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical song ? 

Then the legends go with them — even yet on the sea 

A wild virtue is left in the touch of the tree, 

And the sailor's night watches are thrilled to the core 

With the lineal offspring of Odin and Thor. 

— The Growth of the Legend : Lowell. 

In contrast with this, notice how clearly both thoughts 
and figures, and the thoughts by means of the figures, 
stand out in poetry that is truly representative : 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 

— The Present Crisis : Lowell. 

Virtue ? a fig ! 't is in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are 
gardens to the which our wills are gardeners ; so that if we will plant net- 
tles, or sew lettuce ; set hyssop, and weed up thyme ; supply it with one 
gender of herbs, or distract it with many ; either to have it sterile with idle- 
ness, or manured with industry ; why the power and corrigible authority of 
this lies in our wills. 

— Othello, i., 3 : Shakespear. 

You have seen 
Sunshine and rain at once ; her smiles and tears 
Were like a better May ; those happy smilets, 
That played on her ripe lips seemed not to know 
What guests were in her eyes: 

— Lear, iv., 3 : Ldem. 

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
Arm it in rags, a digmy's straw does pierce it . . . 

Get thee glass eyes ; 
And like a scurvy politician seem 
To see the things thou dost not. 

— Idem, iv., 6. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ORNAMENTAL ALLOY IN REPRESENTATION. 

Poetic Development of the far-fetched Simile in the Illustrating of Illustra- 
tions — Examples of this from several Modern Writers — Whose Repre- 
sentation or Illustration fails to represent or illustrate — Poetic Devel- 
opment of the Mixed Metaphor — Examples from Modern Poets — In 
what will this result — More Examples — How the Tendency leads the 
Poet from his Main Thought to pursue Suggestions made even by 
Sounds — Representing thus a Lack of Sanity or of Discipline, neither of 
which is what Art should represent. 

/^\UR examination of the effects upon poetry of the 
didactic tendency, in which considerations of thought 
overbalance those of form, have led us to trace certain 
phases of failure to a lack of representation. We have 
now to examine the effects of the ornate tendency, in 
which considerations of form overbalance those of thought, 
and in which therefore there is failure because of an ex- 
cess of representation. 

It is simply natural for one who has obtained facility in 
illustrating his ideas to overdo the matter, at times, and 
to carry his art so far as to x re-illustrate that which has 
been sufficiently illustrated or is itself illustrative. The 
first form that we need to notice, in which this tendency 
shows itself, is a poetic development and extension of 
what rhetoricians term the " far-fetched " simile, a simile 
in which minor points of resemblance are sought out and 
dwelt upon in minute detail and at unnecessary length. 
Attention has been directed in another place to the way 

308 



ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 309 

in which the exclusively allegorical treatment in Spenser's 
Faerie Queene causes us to lose sight of the main sub- 
ject of the poem. An allegory, as has been said, is mainly 
an extended simile. The poetic fault of which I am to 
speak is sometimes found in similes, sometimes in alle- 
gories, and sometimes in episodes filled with metaphorical 
language, partaking partly of the distinctive nature of 
both. These passages seem to be suggested as illustra- 
tions of the main subject, but they are so extended and 
elaborated that they really obscure it. As the reader 
goes on to peruse them, he either forgets altogether what 
the subject to be illustrated is, or he finds himself unable 
to separate that which belongs only to it, from that which 
belongs only to the illustration. 

It is largely owing to passages manifesting this charac- 
teristic that Robert Browning's writings seem obscure to 

o o 

so many. Most persons would be obliged to read the fol- 
lowing, for example, two or three times before understand- 
ing it, and this because of the difficulty they experience 
in separating the particulars of the passage that go with 
the main thought from those that go with the illustrating 
thought ; in other words, the excess of representation in 
the form interferes with its clearness. 

The man is witless of the size, the sum, 
The value, in proportion of all things, 

****** 
Should his child sicken unto death, — why, look 
For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 
Or pretermission of his daily craft — 
While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child 
At play, or in school, or laid asleep, 
Will start him to an agony of fear, 
Exasperation, just as like ! demand 
The reason why — " 't is but a word," object — 
" A gesture " — he regards thee as our lord 



3IO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

Who lived there in the pyramid alone, 

Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young 

We both would unadvisedly recite 

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, 

Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst 

All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. 

Thou and the child have each a veil alike 

Thrown o'er your heads from under which ye both 

Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match 

Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know ! 

He holds on firmly to some thread of life — 

(It is the life to lead perforcedly) 

Which runs across some vast distracting orb 

Of glory on either side that meagre thread, 

Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet — 

The spiritual life around the earthly life ! 

The law of that is known to him as this — 

His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 

So is the man perplexed with impulses 

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, 

Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across — 

And not along, — this black thread through the blaze — 

" It should be " balked by " here it cannot be." 

— An Epistle. 

It must be confessed, however, that these episodes of 
Browning are often very charming to those who have 
come to understand them, e. g. : 

And hereupon they bade me daub away. 

Thank you ! my head being crammed, their walls a blank, 

Never was such prompt disemburdening. 

First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 

I drew them, fat and lean : then, folks at church, 

From good old gossips waiting to confess 

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 

To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot 

Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 

With the little children round him in a row 

Of admiration, half for his beard and half 

For that white anger of his victim's son 



ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 3II 

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
After the passion of a thousand years) 
Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 
Which the intense eyes look through, came at eve 
On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers 
The brute took growling, prayed, and so was gone. 
I painted all, then cried, " 't is ask and have, — 
Choose, for more 's ready ! " — laid the ladder flat, 
And showed my covered bit of cloister wall. 

— Fra Lippo Lippi. 

This way of turning from the main thought of a pas- 
sage, in order to amplify and illustrate the illustration, 
characterizes still more the poetry of a later school. 
Notice how, in the following from Gerald Massey, the 
"Oak" is used to illustrate the condition of England, 
and then the picture of Victory further on is used to 
illustrate the condition of the oak. 

And England slumbered in the lap of Peace, 
Beneath her grand old Oak which, hale and strong, 
Rode down the storm, and wrestled with the winds, 
To rise in pomp of bloom, and paean of song, 
Green with the sap of many hundred springs ; 
And tossed its giant arms in wanton life, 
Like Victory smiling in the sun of Glory. 

— Glimpses of the War: Massey. 

But it is Swinburne who has developed most fully, and 
apparently with design, this method of catching at the 
illustrating thought as if it were the main thought, 
and going on to illustrate it, and then catching at this 
second illustration once more, and treating it in the same 
way, and so on ad infinitum. Notice this from his Evening 
on the Broads : 



312 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

All over the gray soft shallow 
Hover the colors and clouds of the twilight, void of a star. 
As a bird unfledged in the broad winged night, whose winglets are callow 
Yet, but soon with their plumes will she cov.r her brood from afar, 
Cover the brood of her worlds that cumber the skies with their blossom 
Thick as the darkness of leaf-shadowed spring is encumbered with flowers. 
World upon world is en wound in the bountiful girth of her bosom, 
Warm and lustrous with life lovely to look on as ours. 
Still is the sunset adrift as a spirit in doubt that dissembles 
Still with itself, being sick of division and dimmed by dismay — 
Nay, not so ; but with love and delight beyond passion it trembles, 
Fearful and fain of the night, lovely with love of the day : 
Fain and feai-ful of rest that is like unto death, and begotten 
Out of the womb of the tomb, born of the seed of the grave : 
Lovely with shadows of loves that are only not wholly forgotten, 
Only not wholly suppressed by the dark as a wreck by the wave. 

The fault in this mode of illustrating, or representing, 
lies in the fact that it does not illustrate nor represent. 
The poet, in writing it, has made the form an end and not 
a means. His thoughts, and methods of developing them, 
are suggested by the representation, and not by that 
which it is supposed to represent, and which his readers 
naturally expect it to represent. Accordingly, his readers 
cannot distinguish the main thought from the illustrating 
thought, nor this again from the re-illustrating thought, 
and the whole passage is necessarily more or less obscure. 
The poet has not made his subject stand forth in clear, 
concrete outlines, as art should do ; but has so veneered 
and besmeared it with excess' of ornamentation that no 
one can tell very decidedly just what his subject is. Be- 
sides this, there is another fundamental error in this style ; 
but as it underlies also the next fault that is to be men- 
tioned, reference will be made to it after we have con- 
sidered that. 

The second form that we need to notice, of the ten- 
dency now under consideration, is allied to the " mixed 



ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 313 

metaphor " in the same way as we found that the 
first was to the "far-fetched simile." Using "mixed 
metaphors " is a fault from which, as most of us know, our 
very best poets are not altogether exempt. Shakespear 
makes Hamlet ask 

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them ? 

— Hamlet, iii., 1. 

And Milton says : 

How sweety did they float upon the wings 
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 
At every fall smoothing the raven down 
Of darkness till it smiled ! 

— Comus. 

Poets, like other people, are careless at times. 
Very likely this fact will account for these passages. 
Possibly, however, the mixed metaphors were used with 
a design, — in the first case, to represent confusion of 
thought, and in the second, complexity. But what are 
we to say of the following from Tennyson ? 

For I dipt into the future far as human eye could see. 

— Locksley Hall. 
With that she kissed 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him and betwixt them blossomed up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth. 

— Princess. 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment 
With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out 
By violet-hooded doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels five words long, 
That on the stretched forefinger of all time 
Sparkle forever. 

— Princess. 



314 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

" Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 
The new light up and culminate in peace." 

— Ide?n. 

There are several questions which passages like these 
suggest, — passages so numerous as to be almost charac- 
teristic of the style of Tennyson. Are they consciously 
designed to crowd the form with that which shall orna- 
ment it ? Do they add to the attractiveness of the form ? 
Do they do this without interfering with the pureness of 
its representation ? Have they any thing to do with 
the fact that those who have never read poetry of the 
school of Tennyson need to learn how to understand it? 
If people of our own day need to learn this, will not 
people of future days need to do the same ? If so, after 
this kind of poetry ceases to be the fashion, will anybody 
ever take the trouble to learn to understand it ? — in 
other words, is there not danger that this poetry, simply 
because its representation is not pure, will not become 
classic? Possibly it may. Even the quotations just 
given are no more mixed in their way than some of the 
music of Wagner; and that is supposed to be the music 
of the future. Music, certainly, develops a taste for it- 
self, and changes its methods in every age. At least 
such has always been its history in the past. Is it the 
same with poetry ? There are sufficient excellencies in 
that of Tennyson to cause it to deserve to live. He has 
been the favorite poet of most of us, and has exerted in- 
comparably more poetic influence upon his age than any 
of his contemporaries. But if he is to live, will it be in 
spite of, or on account of, faults such as we are now con- 
sidering? If on account of them, and if future poets are 
to imitate and develop his peculiarities, what is to become 
of poetry ? Notice what some of his followers are doing 



ORNAMENT IN ROE TRY. 3 1 5 

already. This is from Gerald Massey's New Years Eve 
in Exile. There is much in this poet's writings that is 
fine, and his spirit is earnest, but these are the very rea- 
sons why he should avoid a mixture such as this : 

But God 's in heaven, and yet the Day shall dawn — 
Break from the dark upon her golden wings, 
Her quick, ripe splendors rend and burn the gloom, 
Her living tides of glory burst, and foam, 
And hurry along the darken'd streets of night. 
Cloud after cloud shall light a rainbow roof, 
And build a Triumph Arch for conquering Day 
To flash her beauty — trail her grandeurs through, 
And take the World in her white arms of light. 
And Earth shall fling aside her mask of gloom, 
And lift her tearful face. O there will be 
Blood on it thick as dews ! The children's blood 
Splash in the Mother's face ! And there must be 
A red sunrise of retribution yet ! 

— New Years Eve in Exile : Massey. 

Here we have a thing that is at once quick and ripe, and 
that rends and burns, and this thing is a day which usually 
dawns slowly ; we have also clouds that light a raijibow, and 
also build what appears to be a similar rainbow Arch, 
which they, and not the sun would have to do, if it were to 
be seen in the east, where alone the day could trail her gran- 
deurs through it at sunrise. Finally, what possible connec- 
tion there is between the sentence beginning, " The child- 
ren's blood " and the context one fails to recognize, unless 
the day is supposed to be the mother of the earth. But if 
so, after such a glorious approach on the part of the day, 
and the performance of so many impossible things, the 
earth would be very ungrateful to treat her as is repre- 
sented. Perhaps, however, this treatment is accounted for 
by the fact that she is a " red sunrise of retribution," etc. 

In this matter of mixing metaphors, however, of all 



3 1 6 FOE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

poets able to do better work, Swinburne caps the climax. 
In the following single sentence, at least so we must judge 
where we have nothing but the punctuation marks to in- 
dicate the sense, we are told of fire kissing and killing, 
which is like light riotous and red flaming round bent — a 
word suggested by the round, perhaps — brows ; and at 
the same time the fire, or the brows, or Semiramis, or 
the dead body — nobody can tell which — is kindling like 
dawn steely snows where treading feet feci snaky lines of 
blood hiss, in which, as is evident (?), they resemble creep- 
ing things that writhe but do not have, as one might sup- 
pose, sthigs to scare adulterers from an imperial bed, bowed 
— possibly boughed misspelt — with a load of lust. After 
this, the same blood, or something else, goes on to chill, 
as if that could put it out, a gust that made her body a 
fire, which now seems to have passed over the whole 
body from the brow to the heel, and is about to cJiange a 
high bright spirit from mortal stains. One supposing that 
no practical end is to be attained by trying to have poets 
avoid alloyed illustrative representation, will be in a fair 
way to have his doubts removed after he has made one 
honest attempt to put into plain prose these remarkable 
adventures of the amorous fire as related in this choice 
specimen of florid poetic art : 

As fire that kisses killing with a kiss, 

He saw the light of death, riotous and red, 
Flame round the bent brows of Semiramis 

Re-risen and mightier, from the Assyrian dead, 
Kindling, as dawn a frost-bound precipice, 

The steely snows of Russia, for the tread 
Of feet that felt before them crawl and hiss 

The snaky lines of blood violently shed 
Like living creeping things 
That writhe but have no stings 



ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 317 

To scare adulterers from the imperial bed 
Bowed with its load of lust, 
Or chill the ravenous gust 
That made her body a fire from heel to head ; 
Or change her high bright spirit and clear, 
From all its mortal stains, from taint of fraud or fear. 

— Song for the Centenary of W. S. Landor. 

The artistic mistake here, just as in the case of that 
allied to the " far-fetched simile," is that the figure, the 
design of which, when rightly used, is to represent, does 
not represent. It does the opposite. Instead of making 
the thought more concrete, and thus giving it more defi- 
niteness of form, it gives it indefiniteness. 

But there is another mistake made in these methods, 
which is psychological as well as artistic. As has been 
seen, in all of these cases in which the clearness of repre- 
sentation is obscured by the excess of it, the course of the 
thought turns from the main subject, as if the writer had 
forgotten it, while going on to develop that which is sug- 
gested by the illustration. In the quotation above from 
Massey, for example, it is easy enough to see that, in the 
fifth line from the last, the phrase mask of gloom suggested 
tearful face, and this again dews, and this blood, and this 
the splashing of it, and all these things together, the red 
sunrise of retribution. In the quotation from Swinburne, 
beginning 

All over the gray soft shallow, 

quoted on page 312, we hear first of a bird ; this sug- 
gests a brood ; this suggests world's coursing skies, this 
suggests blossoms, this flowers, this putting flowers in a 
bosom, etc., while, in the last passage quoted from him, 
fire suggests light, kindling light suggests dawn, dawn 
suggests its effects on snow, snow the effects of feet tread- 
ing it, treading suggests crawling, and crawling suggests 



318 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

creeping. Worse than this, certain words seem suggested 
merely by their sounds which alliterate with words near 
them. Now, suppose a man in conversation were to let 
his thoughts run on in this way, deviating from the line 
of his argument or description, whenever he happened to 
strike a word the sense or sound of which suggested 
something different from that of which he started out to 
speak. What should we think of him ? One of two 
things, — either that he was insane, or had a very poorly 
disciplined mind. Precisely this is what is represented, so 
far as any thing is represented, by this kind of poetry. 
Yet, as we all know, the finest and highest art must 
represent the finest and highest efforts of the finest and 
highest powers of the mind. If this be so, then poetry 
modelled upon a form which is the legitimate and natural 
expression of an insane or a poorly disciplined mind, is not 
poetry of the finest and highest order. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

REPRESENTATION IN POEMS CONSIDERED AS WHOLES. 

Form in Words and Sentences — How Visible Appearances give an Impres- 
sion of Form — How Movable Appearances do the Same — Consistency 
and Continuity in a Sentence Necessary to give it an Effect of Form — 
A Poem a Series of Representations and of Sentences — Must have 
Manifest Consistency and Continuity giving it Manifest Unity and Prog- 
ress, also Definiteness and Completeness — Form modelled on Direct 
Representation — How Figures can be carried out with Manifest Con- 
sistency and Continuity — Complete and Broken Figures — Examples of 
Poems with Forms modelled on the Methods of Illustrative Representa- 
tion — How Excellence of Form in all Poems of whatever Length should 
be determined — Certain Poems not representing Unity and Progress — ■ 
Great Poets see Pictures when conceiving their Poems ; Inferior Poets 
think of Arguments — Same Principles applied to Smaller Poems — The 
Moral in Poetry should be represented not presented — Poetic Excel- 
lence determined not by the Thought but by the Form of the Thought, 
which must be a Form of Representation. 

"\X/"Ehave been considering the representative nature 
of poetry. It remains for us to consider the rep- 
resentative nature of a poem. All the products of art, 
it was said at the opening of this work, are acknowledged 
to have what is termed a form. In what sense can a 
poem be said to have form, and what is necessary to cause 
the form to be what it should be ? In order to determine 
this, let us go back for moment to the method in which 
thought attains form in ordinary language of which poetry 
is a development. When we have noticed the principles 

319 



320 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

that operate there, we shall have something to aid us in 
solving our question here. 

These principles are very simple. Sounds, or letters 
symbolizing them in a material sphere, represent a thought 
in the immaterial mind, and thus give it a form embodied 
in a word. Two or more words put together give form 
to compound words, phrases, or sentences. Let us exam- 
ine the last of these for a moment. It is the most 
complex of the three, yet very simple as compared with 
the collection of words in a whole poem. At the same 
time, too, it is the most complete form of expression of 
the three — in fact, in its way an absolutely complete form 
of expression. A whole poem is more complete only in 
the sense that it is composed of a large number of these 
sentences. As mere vehicles of expression, therefore, 
every principle that applies to them applies to the poem 
as a whole, and if we can find out in what sense they can 
be said to have form, we can have something to guide us 
in determining in what sense a poem can be said to have 
form. 

What do we mean, then, by saying that a sentence has 
form? If it were a visible object we should say it had 
form in the degree in which it appeared to be one object, 
by which we should mean in the degree in which, owing 
to the effects of outlines, colors, or some other features, 
every part of the object seemed to be connected with 
every other part of it throughout the entire extent of 
space which it occupied. A sentence is not visible in 
space, but is apprehended in time, — in words that follow 
one another. Its substance is movement, and if we apply 
to it the same criterions as those usually applied to 
visible objects, changing only the terms that are necessary 
to refer to it as an object whose substance is movement, 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 32 1 

we must say that it appears to have form in the degree in 
which it appears to be one movement by which we mean 
in the degree in which every part of its movement seems 
to be connected with every other part of it, and this 
throughout the whole extent of time which it occupies. 
The first of these conditions, when every part of the 
movement seems to be connected with every other part 
of it, gives to the whole the effect of consistency. The sec- 
ond of the conditions, when this connected movement 
seems to extend throughout the whole time occupied by it, 
gives to the whole the effect of continuity. In a perfect 
sentence, consistency is manifest, because every word or 
clause is related in some way to every other ; and con- 
tinuity, because every word or clause is related in some 
way to a subject which represents the beginning of a 
movement ; to a predicate, which represents the continua- 
tion and sometimes the end of the movement ; and also, 
when needed, to an object, which represents the end of 
the movement. It is for these reasons that a perfect sen- 
tence seems to us to have form : it has consistency and 
continuity. 

If this be true of a sentence, which is a series of words 
representing thought, why should it not be true of a poem, 
which is also a series of words representing thought ? 
A poem is made up of series of sentences, or, as we have 
found, of series of representations, some of them continu- 
ing through many sentences. If the poem, as a whole, 
is to have form, and one that can be readily recognized, 
it follows, from what has been said, that its different sen- 
tences or representations of movements or actions must 
all manifest their relationships to each other, thus pro- 
ducing the effect of consistency ; and also their relation- 
ships to the general forward movement, thus producing 
the effect of continuity. 



322 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

From its very nature a whole poem is always more or 
less complex ; and the human mind is so constituted that 
one can never understand that which is complex until it 
has been analyzed sufficiently to make possible some kind 
of a classification of its parts. For this classification there 
is needed a basis, and this is always found primarily in 
some one feature which all the parts possess in common, 
as when the whole family of birds are classed together be- 
cause they all have feathers. The mind cannot understand, 
therefore, that consistency exists in any complex series of 
sentences or thoughts represented by them, unless per- 
ceiving one kind of movement or action which all manifest ; 
nor continuity unless perceiving one direction which all 
the movements or actions take. Hence it is that the 
action represented in art, if the art-product is to appear to 
have an artistic form, must be characterized by what are 
termed unity and progress, unity being the result of effects 
produced by apparent consistency, and progress, of the 
effects of apparent continuity. 

Once more, unity as influenced by progress in an art- 
product renders its aesthetic effects clearly distinguishable 
from all other effects produced side by side with it. In 
other words, progress in unity gives definitcness to form. 
On the other hand, progress as influenced by unity in an 
art-product renders its aesthetic effects clearly distinguish- 
able from all other effects produced before or after it, 
because these are separated from it, both at its beginning 
and at its end. In other words, unity in progress gives 
completeness to form. 

A poem is a development of language, and language is 
a representation of thought, and thought is always in 
motion. Every poem, therefore, must represent thought 
in motion. But more than this, it must manifest unity. 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 323 

Therefore it must represent one thought to which all other 
thoughts that it contains must be related and subordi- 
nated. More than this, too, it must manifest progress. 
Therefore it must represent this one thought as moving 
in one direction, as having one end toward the attainment 
of which all the movements of all the related and subor- 
dinated thoughts of the entire poem tend. 

A production in which these requirements are fulfilled, 
and, for reasons given on the last page, such a production 
only, will have a form that will appear to be definite and 
complete. 

Now let us examine some poems, and find out, if we can, 
how far they fulfil these requirements. Notice, first, the 
following representation of a very common thought that 
comes to all of us when gazing on something that we are 
not to see again. The unity of the poem is embodied in 
the idea expressed in the word forever, and its progress in 
the amplification of this idea, by extending it successively 
to the river as it flows near the speaker (first stanza), 
away from him (second stanza), and with other surround- 
ings in space (third stanza), and in time (fourth stanza). 

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 

Thy tribute wave deliver : 
No more by thee my steps shall be, 

Forever and forever. 

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet then a river : 
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be, 

Forever and forever. 

But here will sigh thine alder tree, 

And here thine aspen shiver ; 
And here by thee will hum the bee 

Forever and forever. 



324 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

A thousand suns will stream on thee, 

A thousand moons will quiver ; 
But not by thee my steps shall be, 

Forever and forever. 

— A Farewell : Tennyson. 

Better examples of the direct representation of com- 
plete phases of action are the following, because in all of 
them the unity and progress are more apparent. All bring 
out distinctly a single idea, and this is unfolded progres- 
sively without a word at the beginning or end or in the 
middle not necessary to complete the picture. 

Home they brought her warrior dead ; 

She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry : 
All her maidens, watching, said, 

" She must weep or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 

Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
Truest friend and noblest foe ; 

Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 

Lightly to the warrior stept, 
Took the face-cloth from the face : 

Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 

Set his child upon her knee — 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 

" Sweet my child, I live for thee." 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

As through the land at eve we went, 

And plucked the ripened ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O, we fell out, I know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 
We lost in other years, 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 325 

There above the little grave, 
O, there above the little grave, 
We kiss'd again with tears. 

— The Princess : Tennyson. 

As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping, 

With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine, 

When she saw me, she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled, 
And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. 

" O what shall I do now ? 't was looking at you now ! 

Sure, sure, such a pitcher I '11 n'er meet again ! 
'T was the pride of my dairy ; O' Barney M'Leary ! 

You 're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine ! " 

I sat down beside her, — and gently did chide her, 
That such a misfortune should give her such pain, 

A kiss then I gave her, — before I did leave her, 
She vowed for such pleasure she 'd break it again. 

'T was hay-making season — I can't tell the reason — 
Misfortunes will never come singly — that 's plain ; 

For, very soon after poor Kitty's disaster, 
The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine. 

— Kitty of Coleraine : C. D. Shanly. 

The two following lyrics are still more effective, for the 
reason that they reveal still more clearly the characteristics 
which we are now considering. Think what either of them 
would be aside from the form in which the facts in them 
are represented. And what in the form makes it so effec- 
tive ? What but its concreteness, revealed through the con- 
sistency and continuity, the unity and progress that char- 
acterize the representation ? 

" O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 
And call the cattle home, 
And call the cattle home, 
Across the sands o' Dee ! " 
The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, 
And all alone went she. 



326 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The creeping tide came up along the sand, 
And o'er and o'er the sand, 
And round and round the sand, 
As far as eye could see ; 
The blinding mist came down and hid the land : 
And never home came she. 

" O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair — 
A tress o' golden hair, 
A drowned maiden's hair — 
Above the nets at sea ? 
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, 
Among the stakes on Dee." 

They rowed her in across the rolling foam — 
The cruel, crawling foam, 
The cruel, hungry foam — 
To her grave beside the sea ; 
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home 
Across the sands o' Dee. 

— Mary, Go and Call the Cattle Home : Kingsley. 

Three fishers went sailing out into the West, — 

Out into the West as the sun went down ; 
Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, 

And the children stood watching them out of the town ; 
For men must work and women must weep ; 
And there 's little to earn, and many to keep, 

Though the harbor bar be moaning. 

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 

And trimmed their lamps as the sun went down ; 

And they looked at the squall and they looked at the shower, 

And the rack it came rolling up, rugged and brown ; 

But men must work, and women must weep, 

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, 
And the harbor bar be moaning. 

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands 

In the morning gleam as the tide went down, 
And the women stood watching and wringing their hands 

For those who would never come back to the town ; 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 327 

For men must work and women must weep — 

And the sooner it 's over the sooner to sleep — 

And good-by to the bar and its moaning. 

— The Fishermen : Idem. 

These poems, in which, as must have been noticed, the 
representation in each case is also definite and complete, 
have unity, because they unfold only one prominent idea ; 
and progress, because the particulars leading up to the 
clearest expression of this idea are unfolded successively 
and logically — unfolded in most of them, in fact, accord- 
ing to the method of the climax. 

Now notice how the same principles apply to poems in 
which illustrative representation is used. This, as we 
have found, either pictures the movements of the mind 
through the operations of external nature, or pictures 
the latter through other operations of external nature 
analogous to them. Direct representation is developed 
from the methods according to which plain language is 
formed ; illustrative representation from those according 
to which distinctively figurative language is formed. In the 
latter some one process or order of events is represented 
in words that image another. This image is thoroughly 
intelligible and enjoyable in the degree in which its out- 
lines are definite and complete, causing the form to appear 
single and unbroken, in which, therefore, the analogy be- 
tween the two things, compared, — of course, in the brief, 
suggestive way that appeals best to the imagination — is 
carried out with consistency and continuity from begin- 
ning to end. In fact, the fundamental reason why similes 
and metaphors, when far-fetched or mixed, are not artistic, 
is because, on account of too much or too little of the 
illustrative element in them, their analogies are not carried 
out successfully. For a good illustration of how they can 



328 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

be carried out successfully, observe the following from 
Mrs. Spafford's (Harriet E. Prescott) Sir Rohan s Ghost : 

Sir Rohan had a ghost ; not by any means a common ghost that appeared 
at midnight on the striking of a bell, and trailed its winding sheet through 
the upper halls nearest the roof, but a ghost that, sleeping or waking, never 
left him — 

Now notice how the same description of the ghost, as 
an outward apparition, is continued in order to represent 
its influence over the inward states and whole experience 
of Sir Rohan : 

a ghost whose long hair coiled round and stifled the fair creations of his 
dreams, and whose white garments swept leprously into his sunlight. 

A sentence or series of sentences in which there is 
throughout this consistency and continuity of meaning is 
artistic. That effort of Sir Boyle Roche in the House of 
Parliament, in which he exclaimed :*. " I smell a rat. I see 
him floating in the air. I will nip him in the bud," — was 
not artistic. His image had been broken even before he 
had nipped it. 

It follows from what has been said, that an artistic 
poem, constructed according to the methods of illus- 
trative representation, must be characterized throughout 
by consistency and continuity. So far as possible, the 
two things compared must be alike in their beginnings, 
middles, and ends ; they must start, move, and stop when 
sustaining analogous relations. 

To see how this is feasible, notice the following poem 
translated from the German. The one feature of ex- 
cellence in it is the fact that it brings out distinctly 
and completely the likeness between the two things com- 
pared — L c, between the fate of a woman at different 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 329 

periods of her life and that of a rose-bush at different 
seasons of the year ; in the one case by words like child, 
maiden, mother, and mound, and in the other by words 
like buds, blossoms, leaves, and withered, as well as May and 
autumn. Because these different stages in human life and 
natural life are so distinctly and completely imaged, the 
one in the other, none of us can fail to feel the representa- 
tive and, in connection with this, the artistic and aesthetic 
effects of the poem. 

A child sleeps under a rose-bush fair. 
The buds swell out in the soft May air. 
Sweetly it rests and on dream-wings flies 
To play with the angels in paradise : 
And the years glide by. 

A maiden stands by the rose-bush fair. 
The dewy blossoms perfume the air. 
She presses her hand to her throbbing breast. 
With love's first wonderful rapture blest : 
And the years glide by. 

A mother kneels by the rose-bush fair, 
Soft sigh the leaves in the evening air. 
Sorrowing thoughts of the past arise, 
And tears of anguish bedim her eyes : 
And the years glide by. 

Naked and lone stands the rose-bush fair, 
Whirled are the leaves in the autumn air, 
Withered and dead they fall to the ground, 
And silently cover a new-made mound : 
And the years glide by. 

— The Rose-bush : Trs. by W. Caldwell. 

Some may be inclined to criticise this poem on the 
ground that the words quoted a moment ago indicating 
the analogies between nature and life by which its form 
is suggested are too numerous, leaving too little to the 



330 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

imagination, and giving something of a mechanical effect 
to the whole. This criticism, however, need not be 
directed against the method in general, only against this 
particular application of it. Here is another poem con- 
structed upon similar principles. Probably the same 
criticism would not be made upon it. The comparison in 
it, is between the spring-time of nature and of human life, 
in which, as is intimated, love is at its strongest. The 
unity of thought in the poem and its progress, not so 
much in time as in space, i. e., from the generic to the 
specific, from universal material nature to the maiden, 
and then to her particular feelings toward her lover, with 
just enough of a suggestion of the disappointment of the 
writer to let us surmise it, — is all very effective. 

The sun had scattered each opal cloud, 

And the flowers had waked from their winter's rest, 

The song of the skylark rang free and loud, 

And ah ! there were eggs in the swallow's nest ! 

And for joy of the spring that so sweet appears, 

I sang with the singing of twenty years. 

Out from the meadows there passed a maid, — 

How can I tell you why she was fair ? 
To see was to love as she bent her head 

Over the brooklet that murmured there. 
As I gazed, in an April of hopes and fears, 
I dreamed with the dreaming of twenty years. 

Next, — for I saw her just once again, — 

Just once in that rare spring-tide, — 
I felt a heart-throb of vague sweet pain, 

For I noticed that some one was by her side ! 
And I turned, with a passion of sudden tears, 
For they loved with the loving of twenty years. 

— Twenty Years : Trs. from the French of E. Barateau. 

In the following, in which also the progress is in space, 
and from the generic to the specific, the art, or the effort 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 33 1 

to give form to the thought, is less apparent than in the 
foregoing. For this reason it is more artistic. In fact it 
would scarcely be possible to conceive of any thing more 
easy and graceful. 

Nature, thy fair and smiling face 

Has now a double power to bless, 
For 't is the glass in which I trace 

My absent Fanny's loveliness. 

Her heavenly eyes above me shine, 

The rose reflects her modest blush, 
She breathes in every eglantine, 

She sings in every warbling thrush. 

That her dear form alone I see 

Need not excite surprise in any, 
For Fanny 's all the world to me, 

And all the world to me is Fanny. 

— To Fanny : Horace Smith. 

It will be noticed that whatever merit the following 
poem has is owing entirely to the consistency with which 
the comparison of the human body to a house is carried 
out from beginning to end. 

I. 

Life and Thought have gone away 

Side by side, 

Leaving door and windows wide ; 
Careless tenants they ! 

II. 

All within is dark as night : 
In the windows is no light ; 
And no murmur at the door, 
So frequent on its hinge before. 

III. 

Close the door, the shutters close, 
Or through the windows we shall see 



332 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The nakedness and vacancy 
Of the dark deserted house. 



IV. 



Come away ; no more of mirth 
Is here or merry-making sound. 

The house was builded of the earth, 
And shall fall again to ground. 



Come away ; for Life and Thought 
Here no longer dwell ; 
But in a city glorious — 
A great and distant city — have bought 
A mansion incorruptible. 

Would they could have stayed with us ! 

— The Deserted House : Tennyson. 

The charm of each of the following, too, is owing to the 
completeness of the parallelism indicated between the 
main thought and the illustrating thought, both of which 
are unfolded with unity and progress. The poems would 
be still more successful artistically, were it not for 
the alloyed representation attendant upon the use of a 
word like lover, in the third stanza of the first poem, and 
of some of tne adjectives in the selection from Bryant ; 
but both, as they are, illustrate well the principal feature 
which we are now considering. 

Up to her chamber window 
A slight wire trellis goes, 
And up this Romeo's ladder 
Clambers a bold white rose. 

I lounge in the ilex shadows, 
I see the lady lean, 
Unclasping her silken girdle, 
The curtain folds between. 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 333 

She smiles on her rose-white lover, 
She reaches out her hand 
And helps him in at the window — 
I see it where I stand ! 

To her scarlet lip she holds him, 
And kisses him many a time — 
Ah me ! it was he that won her 
Because he dared to climb ! 

— Nocturne : T. B. Aldrich. 

A brook came stealing from the ground ; 

You scarcely saw its silvery gleam 
Among the herbs that hung around 

The borders of that winding stream, 
The pretty stream, the placid stream, 
The softly gliding, bashful stream. 

A breeze came wandering from the sky, 

Light as the whispers of a dream ; 
He put the o'erhanging grasses by, 

And softly stooped to kiss the stream, 
The pretty stream, the flattered stream, 
The shy yet unreluctant stream. 

The water, as the wind passed o'er, 

Shot upward many a glancing beam, 
Dimpled and quivered more and more, 

And tripped along a livelier stream ; 
The flattered stream, the simpering stream, 
The fond, delighted, silly stream. 

Away the airy wanderer flew 

To where the fields with blossoms teem, 

To sparkling springs and rivers blue, 
And left alone that little stream, 

The flattered stream, the cheated stream, 

The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. 

The careless wind came never back ; 

He wanders yet the fields, I deem ; 
But, on its melancholy track, 

Complaining went that little stream, 



334 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

The cheated stream, the hopeless stream, 
The ever-murmuring, mourning stream, 

— The Wind and the Stream ■: W. C.Bryant. 

Still finer,: — because it represents a grander thought, ap- 
pealing to us literally with the voice of nature and of the 
God behind nature, as well as because the comparison in 
it to human life is indicated in the subtlest, as, also, for the 
imagination, the most powerful way, — is the following : 

The moon is at her full, and, riding high, 

Floods the calm fields with light. 
The airs that hover in the summer sky 

Are all asleep to-night. 

There comes no voice from the great woodlands round 

That murmured all the day ; 
Beneath the shadow of their boughs, the ground 

Is not more still than they. 

But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep ; 

His rising tide I hear, 
Afar I see the glimmering billows leap ; 

I see them breaking near. 

Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fair 

Pure light that sits on high — 
Springs eagerly, and faintly sinks, to where 

The mother waters lie. 

m 
Upward again it swells ; the moonbeams show 

Again its glimmering crest ; 

Again it feels the fatal weight below, 

And sinks, but not to rest. 

Again, and yet again, until the Deep 

Recalls his brood of waves ; 
And with a sullen moan, abashed, they creep 

Back to his inner caves. 

Brief respite ! they shall rush from that recess 

With noise and tumult soon, 
And fling themselves, with unavailing stress, 

Up toward the placid moon. 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 335 

O restless Sea, that, in thy prison here, 

Dost struggle and complain ; 
Through the slow centuries yearning to be near 

To that fair orb in vain : 

The glorious source of light and heat must warm 

Thy billows from on high, 
And change them to the cloudy trains that form 

The curtains of the sky. 

Then only may they leave the waste of brine 

In which they welter here, ' 
And rise above the hills of earth, and shine 

In a serene r sphere. 

— The Tides : W. C. Bryant. 

The chief criticisms that can be made on Bryant's 
poetry, of which these two quotations furnish fair speci- 
mens, are the tendencies in it to alloyed representation 
already mentioned, and to slowness of movement. The 
following, however, manifests neither of these character, 
istics ; and, although it does not present either a very 
great or an original thought, being evidently suggested 
by Goethe's Erl-King, it presents what thought it has 
artistically, and in strict accordance with the methods 
which we have been considering. 

11 O father, let us hence — for hark, 

A fearful murmur shakes the air ; 
The clouds are coming swift and dark ; — 

What horrid shapes they wear ! 
A winged giant sails the sky ; 
O father, father, let us fly ! " 

" Hush, child ; it is a grateful sound, 

That beating of the summer shower ; 
Here, where the boughs hang close around, 

We '11 pass a pleasant hour, 
Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain, 
Has swept the broad heaven clear again." 



336 POETRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 

" Nay, father, let us haste, — for see 
That horrid thing with horned brow, — 

His wings o'erhang this very tree, 
He scowls upon us now ; 

His huge black arm is lifted high ; 
O father, father, let us fly ! " 

" Hush, child" ; but, as the father spoke, 

Downward the livid firebolt came, 
Close to his ear the thunder broke, 

And, blasted by the flame, 
The child lay dead ; while dark and still, 
Swept the grim cloud along the hill. 

— A Presentiment : Bryant. 

The principles thus illustrated measure artistic excel 
lence in all poems of whatever length. Just as in a short 
poem, so in a long one, the development of the main idea, 
whether by representing what is said, as in the dramatic 
form, or what is done, as in the narrative or epic, must be 
consistent and continuous throughout. Every poem, as 
a whole, even if as long as Othello, Faust, Paradise 
Lost, or The yEjicid, must furnish, with unity and 
progress, what may be termed a complete moving 
image of the action which it is designed to represent. 
Otlicllo, for instance, gives us a complete view of the suc- 
cessive stages of jealousy, as developed both in a frank, 
magnanimous character like Othello, and in a deceitful, 
malicious character like Iago. So Paradise Lost gives 
us a complete view of the author's theory of the causes, 
character, and results of the loss of paradise. It would be 
a misappropriation of time in this place to present a 
thorough analysis of any of these poems in order to prove 
this statement. Besides, there is no necessity for doing 
it. Such analyses have often been made, and the truth of 
the statement will be acknowledged by all acquainted 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 337 

with them. The difference, therefore, between the ability 
to produce a long poem and a short one is the same that 
exists between a greater and smaller degree of capacity in 
other departments, — a difference in the ability to hold the 
thought persistently to a single subject, both complicated 
and comprehensive, until every thing in it has been classi- 
fied and arranged and aimed, in accordance with one 
formative conception. 

The moment that we try to do so, we shall be able to 
recall numbers of poems, great and small, that fail to 
manifest this unity and progress. All such w r orks as 
Thomson's Seasons, Cowper's Task, Campbell's Pleas- 
ures of Hope, and Wordsworth's Excursion must be 
classed with these. What unity and progress they 
reveal, — and some might claim these qualities for them, — 
is of the logical, not representative, kind. There is 
in them no consistency nor continuity of action. As 
wholes they are not made up of related parts of single on- 
ward movements. In fact, they scarcely represent move- 
ments at all. The Excursion, even according to its au- 
thor, was planned to have the effect of a cathedral with 
one central nave and many side chapels. The plan was 
only too faithfully carried out. For, although composed 
in words that ought to move, it is an embodiment of 
slowness, having all the solidity and stolidity of a struc- 
ture of stone, and for this reason few read it through. 

None of these poems deserve to be placed in the highest 
rank, because they lack the qualities which, as w r e have 
found, must characterize the products of an art, whose 
form is apprehensible in time. They lack the qualities 
because they lack the form that necessarily would show 
these; and they lack the form — i.e., the representative 
form, — because their authors did not start to compose 



338 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART, 

them with representative conceptions. When Dante, 
Shakespear, and Milton first conceived their greatest 
works, it must have been a pictitre that appeared to loom 
before their imaginations. It is doubtful whether Words- 
worth, Cowper, and Campbell thought of anything except 
an argument. 

In smaller poems similar defects are not so noticeable ; 
but it would be well for poetic culture if they were. Long- 
fellow outgrew the period of his Excelsior ; but the world 
that welcomed it admiringly when it first appeared might 
welcome it with equal rapture now; yet the lack of repre- 
sentative truth in its conception makes it so unreal and 
absurd that nothing but repeated experiences at school 
exhibitions should convince one that it can be read or 
heard with a sober countenance. Look at its beginning : 

The shades of night were falling fast 
As through an Alpine village passed 
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, 
A banner with the strange device 
Excelsior ! 

At its middle : 

" O stay," the maiden said, "and rest 
Thy weary head upon this breast ! " 
A tear stood in his bright blue eye, 
But still he answered with a sigh, 
Excelsior ! 

And at its end : v 

There in the twilight cold and gray, 
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell like a falling star, 
Excelsior ! 

It is impossible to believe that the series of events 
described here could ever have been perceived, except, 
perhaps, in a dream ; which this tale does not purport to 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 339 

represent. Of course there is in the poem an underlying 
moral; but this could have been brought out just as well, 
and better, in connection with a form representative of 
what really takes place on the earth. The following is a 
specimen of Longfellow's more artistic method : 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 

It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, 

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 

And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fail, 
Some days must be dark and dreary. 

— The Rainy Day : Longfellow, 

Even in the last stanza of this, however, some would 
say that there is too much of a tendency to moralize. 
This tendency which Longfellow manifests, in common 
with Whittier and most of our American poets, is some- 
thing that of course, in its way, is inartistic ; not that a 
poem should have no moral, but, as has been said before, 
that this should be represented rather than stated. But 
the power to represent, as all art should represent, — as 
well as the artistic sense to appreciate such a representa- 
tion when it has been produced, — seems, as yet, not to 
have been fully developed among us. Most of us appear 
to think that thought alone constitutes poetry, or, if not 
this, at least thought in connection with a strong and 
metrical expression of it, without regard to other features 



340 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

necessary to render its character in all respects representa- 
tive. 

The truth is, however, — and this is the truth which the 
whole line of our argument has been intended to empha- 
size, — that poetry is more than thought ; it is more even 
than a strong and metrical expression of thought. The 
mere fact that a girl was drowned on the sands of Dee, or 
that three fishermen were lost at sea, is not enough to ac- 
count for the interest that we take in Charles Kingsley's 
O Mary, Go and Call the Cattle Home, and The FisJiermen. 
It is his poetry that interests us ; and by his poetry we 
mean the representative way in which he has told these 
tales. So with reference to any statements of facts or 
opinions. If Wordsworth had said that Milton had a 
bright intellect and lived a comparatively solitary life, 
few would have found his words particularly interesting, 
or noteworthy; but when, in his sonnet on that poet, he 
said : 

Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart, 

the representative nature of his statement, giving it form 
and beauty — which latter exists, if at all, as a character- 
istic of form, — made his expression at once attractive 
and fitted it to be remembered. So, again, it is not 
Pope's authority, nor the thought in the following lines, 
which gives them such a valu x e that they are inserted in 
every book of quotations ; it is the representative form in 
which the thoughts are expressed, without which form, 
mere statements to the effect that order must characterize 
heaven, or that wise and good men are cautious, would 
not be deemed deserving of remembrance. 

Order is heaven's first law. 

— Essay on Man, 4. 



QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 341 

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 

— Essay on Criticism, 3. 
Damn with faint praise. 

— Epis. to Dr. Arbtcthnot. 

Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise. 

— Epis. of Horace, I ; Trs. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 

— Essay on Man, 4. 

In one word, then, the important thing- that needs to be 
borne in mind in judging of poetry, is that it is an art, 
and partakes of the nature of the fine arts ; and that, as 
such, its one essential is a representative form appealing 
to a man through that which causes him to admire the 
beautiful. Tennyson has expressed this truth well in what 
he calls The Moral of his Day-Dream. 

So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 

And if you find no moral there, 
Go, look in any glass and say, 

What moral is in being fair. 
O to what uses shall we put 

The wildweed-flower that simply blows ? 
And is there any moral shut 

Within the bosom of the rose ? 

But he has suggested in his next stanza another truth 
that needs to be considered in connection with the last, 
before all the facts concerning the functions of poetry in 
the world can be understood. 

But any man that walks the mead 

In bud, or blade, or bloom, may find, 
According as his humors lead, 

A meaning suited to his mind. 
And liberal applications lie 

In Art like Nature, dearest friend, 
So 't were to cramp its use, if I 

Should hook it to some useful end. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE USEFUL ENDS OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 

These are all developed from Possibilities and Methods of Expression un- 
derlying equally the Formation of Poetic and of all Language — Poetry 
forced to recognize that Nature symbolizes Processes of Thought — In- 
fluence of this Recognition upon Conceptions of Truth, Human and 
Divine, Scientific and Theologic — And its Effects upon Feeling and 
Action — Conclusion. 

TDERHAPS this discussion of poetry as a representa- 
tive art can be brought to a close in no better way 
than by dwelling for a moment upon the thought sug- 
gested by the stanza at the end of the last chapter. 
Poetry is not, in a technical sense, a useful art, yet its 
forms have their uses, and many uses — as many, in fact, 
as have the forms of nature itself, which poetry, when it 
fulfils its mission, employs in its representations. To give 
a complete list of these uses here would be irrelevant. It 
is sufficient to suggest, that in the last analysis all of them 
are developed from possibilities and methods of expres- 
sion, underlying the formation of all language but es- 
pecially of poetic language. 

Language involves, as we have found, a representa- 
tion of mental facts and processes through the use of 
analogous external facts and processes, which alone are 
apprehensible to others, and which alone, therefore, can 
make others apprehend our thoughts. But facts and 
processes fitted to furnish such representations may be 

342 



UTILITY OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 343 

perceived on every side of us in the objects and operations 
of what we term nature. It is the poet, however, who is 
most conscious of these analogies, for he, instead of ac- 
cepting those noticed by others and embodied in conven- 
tional words, is constantly seeking for new ones and using 
these. To the poet, and the reader of poetry, therefore, 
all nature appears to be, in a peculiar sense, a representa- 
tion, a repetition, a projection into the realm of matter, of 
the immaterial processes of thought within the mind. 
This, as I interpret it, is what Wordsworth meant when 
he said : 

I have learned 
To look on nature not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth, but — 

because finding in nature the representations of human 
thought — 

hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity. 

— Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey. 

There is, accordingly, a literal as well as a figurative 
sense, in which the poet 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 

— As You Like It, ii., 1 : Shakespear. 

Whatever others may say or think, 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language. 

— T/ianatopsis : Bryant. 

In a true sense of the term she has a voice ; and she 
has more than this : she has a voice which says something, 
which imparts definite intelligence. We have found how 
in every process in one department of nature, the mind of 



344 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

poetry finds the image of a process in another department 
of nature. " Flower," says Tennyson, — 

Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies ; — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is. 

— Flower in the Crannied Wall. 

To extend this thought, here is a rose-bush. When it 
begins to grow, it is small and weak and simple. As 
it develops, it becomes large and strong and complex. 
So does every other plant in nature ; so does a man ; so 
does a nation ; so does all humanity ; so, as far as we can 
know, does the entire substance that develops for the 
formation of our globe. One mode of operation, one 
process, we find everywhere. If this be so, then to the 
ear skilled to listen to the voice in nature, what is all the 
universe but a mighty auditorium — in which every tale is 
re-echoed endlessly beneath, about, and above, through 
every nook of its grand crypts and aisles and arches? But, 
again, if all created things bear harmonious reports with 
reference to the laws controlling them, what inference 
must follow from this ? In view of it, what else can a 
man do but attribute all these processes, one in mode, to 
a single source ? — and, more than this, what can he do but 
accept the import of these processes, the methods indi- 
cated in them, the principles exemplified by them, as 
applicable to all things, — in other words, as revelations of 
the universal truth ? So the poet finds not only thought 
in nature, but also truth. 

Once more, subtly connected with these facts are 
others. If nature can represent the thought, frame the 
language of the human mind, — why, according to the 



UTILITY OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 345 

same analogy, can it not represent the thought, frame the 
language of a greater Creative Mind ? And if all nature 
represents the same kind of thought, i. e., analogous 
thought, or truth that is harmonious, why is not this 
Creative Mind one mind ? We all know how it is with 
man when he represents in language any thing true with 
reference to his inner self. Take that experience, in some 
of the manifestations of which religious people believe 
that he most resembles the Unseen One. Think how 
love, which is begotten often in a single glance, and is 
matured in a single thrill, gives vent to its invisible in- 
tensity. How infinite in range and in variety are those 
material forms of earth and air and fire and water which 
are used by man as figures through which to represent 
the emotion within him ! What extended though sweet 
tales, what endless repetitions of comparisons from hills 
and valleys, streams and oceans, flowers and clouds, are 
made to revolve about that soul which, through their 
visible agency, endeavors to picture in poetry spiritual 
conditions and relations which would remain unrevealed 
but for the possibility of thus indirectly symbolizing them. 
Now if this be so with human love, why should not the 
Great Heart whose calm beating works the pulses of the 
universe, express divine love through similar processes 
evolving infinitely and eternally into forms not ideal and 
poetic, but real and tangible, — in fact, into forms which 
we term those of nature. This is the question with which, 
wittingly or unwittingly, poetry and poetic faith always 
have confronted and always must confront merely natural 
science and scientific skepticism. Therefore, Bailey wrote 
the truth, when he said 

Poetry is itself a thing of God — 

He made his prophets poets, and the more 



346 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 

We feel of poesy, do we become 

Like God in love and power. 

— Festus. 

This interpretation of the meaning of nature, natural 
and human, by those who have learned to interpret it,' 
while striving to have it convey their own meanings, lies 
at the basis of all the practical uses of poetry. Therefore 
it is that its products bring with them an atmosphere 
consoling and inspiring, both enlightening and expanding 
the conceptions and experiences of the reader. Just as 
each specific application of Christianity, — all its warnings, 
consolations, and encouragements, which develop purity 
within and righteousness without, in the individual, in 
society, or in the state, spring from the one general con- 
ception of universal and divine love manifested in the 
form of Christ, so do all the specific applications of 
poetry spring from the one general conception of universal 
and divine truth manifested through the forms of ma- 
terial and human nature. When each of us can say with 
Wordsworth — 

I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity, 

Then too we may be able to add with him— 

And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me^with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : — 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
And rolls through all things. 

— Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey. 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 

A History of American Literature. By Moses Coit Tyler, Pro- 
fessor of English Literature in the University of Michigan. Volumes 

I and II, comprising the period, 1607-1765. Large 8vo, about 700 

pages, handsomely bound in cloth, extra, gilt top, $6.00 ; half calf, 

extra, .......... $11 00 

The History of American Literature, now offered to the public, is the first at- 
tempt ever made to give a systematic and critical account of the literary development 
of the American people. It is not a mere cyclopaedia of literature, or a series of de- 
tached biographical sketches accompanied by literary extracts : but an analytic and 
sustained narrative of our literary history from the earliest English settlement in 
America down to the present time. The work is the result of original and independent 
studies prosecuted by the author for the past ten years, and gives an altogether new 
analysis of American literary forces and results during nearly three centuries. The 

E resent two volumes— a complete work in themselves — cover the whole field of our 
istory during the colonial time. 

" An important national work." — Nezu York Tribune. 

" The literary event of the decade."— Hartford Courant, 

" A book more interesting than half the new novels."— The Nation. 

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' k But the plan of Professor Tyler's book is so vast and its execution so fearless, 
that no reader can expect or wish to agree with all its personal judgments. It is a book 
truly admirable, both in design and in general execution ; the learning is great, the 
treatment wise, the style fresh and vigorous. Here and there occurs a phrase which a 
severer revision would perhaps exclude, but all such criticisms are trivial in view of so 
signal a success. Like Parkman, Professor Tyler may almost be said to have created, 
not merely his volumes, but their theme. Like Parkman, at any rate, he has taken a 
whole department of human history, rescued it from oblivion, and made it hencefor- 
ward a matter of deep interest to every thinking mind."— T. W. Higginson, in The 
Nation. 

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search, and a cultivated literary habit, which was perhaps no less essential than the 
two former conditions, to its successful accomplishment. The style of the author is 
marked by vigor, originality, comprehensiveness, and a curious instinct in the selection 
of words. In this latter respect, though not in the moulding of sentences, the reader 
may perhaps be reminded of the choice and fragrant vocabulary of Washington Irving, 
whose words alone often leave an exquisite odor like the perfume of sweet-briar and 
arbutus." — George Ripley, in the Tribune. 

II Professor Moses Coit Tyler's ' History of American Literature,' of which the 
first two volumes have just been issued, will take rank at once as a book of lasting 
value, even though the author should advance no further than he has already done in 
the scheme of his work. We are not unmindful of the eminent historians this country 
has produced, when we express our opinion that his history is the best study of Ameri- 
can historic material that has been written by an American. There has been manifestly 
no limit to the enthusiasm, conscientiousness and industry with which he has possessed 
himself of the entire body of the literature of which he treats, and at the same time he 
has displayed the qualities of a true literary artist in giving form, color and perspective 
to his work." — David Gray, in the Buffalo Courier. 



PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAMS SONS. 

Studies in German Literature. By Bayard Taylor, 
Edited by Marie Taylor. With an introduction by the Hon. 
Geo. H. Boker. Octavo, cloth extra, . . . , |2 oo 

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it was written. * * * It forms the best introduction to German literature the 
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aspiring student who wishes for a guide, or by the general reader who is desirous 
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Germany." — London Spectator. 

" Without having received the last touches of the author's hand, it is con- 
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wise criticism." — N. Y. Tribune. 

" The work of a painstaking scholar, who can select with rare discernment 
what should come to the foreground of attention, and has the power of express- 
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* * * t^ author's power of imparting to others his own comprehension 
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publican. 

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"It is full of the most subtle and suggestive criticism." — Applcton s 
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" The volume has a very particular value, for it treats on subjects concern- 
ing which Mr. Taylor was in every way qualified to speak with the voice of au- 
thority." — Phila. Evening Telegraph. 

" There could be no better guide placed in the hands of any desiring to 
begin the study of this great and rich literature." — Harper's Weekly. 

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" These lectures, are in character, elementary and popular * * * and show 
the author's wide knowledge of German." — Hartford Times. 

" They are full of the products of wide and accurate scholarship, and show 
a subtlety and depth of analytical power. "-^Detroit Free Press. 

' The lectures on Lessing, Schiller and Goethe, are each worth the pr : c° of 
the book." — Brooklyn Eagle. 

" The volume is admirably adapted to the needs of students of G*"T r "\n 
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" The touch of Bayard Taylor is always so vivifying that it is delighf •' to 
the mature scholar as well as to the student." — Milwaukee Sentinel. 



PROSE MASTERPIECES FROM MODERN ESSAY- 
ISTS : comprising single specimen essays from Irving, Leigh Hunt, Lamb, 
De Quincey, Landor, Sydney Smith, Thackeray, Emerson, Arnold, Morley, 
Helps, Kingsley, Ruskin, Lowell, Carlyle, Macaulay, Froude, Freeman, 
Gladstone, Newman, Leslie Stephen. These essays have been selecled 
with reference to presenting specimens of the method of thought and the 
literary style of their several writers, and also for the purpose of putting 
into convenient shape for direct comparison the treatment given by such 
writers to similar subjects. 



The Mutability of Literature, by 

Irving. 
The World of Books, by Hunt. 
Imperfect Sympathies, by Lamb. 
Conversation, by De Quincey. 
Petition of the Thugs, by Landor. 
Bf.nefits of Parliament, by Landor. 
Fallacies, by Smith. 
Nil Nisi Bonum, by Thackeray. 
Compensation, by Emerson. 
Sweetness and Light, by Arnold. 
Popular Culture, by Morley. 
Art of Living with Others, by Helps. 



My Winter Garden, by Kingsley. 

Work, by Ruskin. 

On a Certain Condescension in For- 
eigners, by Lowell. 

On History, by Carlyle. 

History, by Macaulay. 

The Science of History, by Froude. 

Race and Language, by Freeman. 

Kin Beyond the Sea, by Gladstone. 

Private Judgment, by Newman. 

An Apology for Plain Speaking, by 
Stephen. 



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THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. By Charles Lamb. "The Temple 
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AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS ; A MANUAL OF SUG- 
GESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS IN LITERATURE : compris- 
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preparation of MSS. for the press, explanations of the details of book-manu- 
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* * * and excellent manual." — Harper s Monthly (Easy Chair). 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 

NEW YORK AND LONDON. 



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